Kilmory (''Cill Mhoire'' in

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

meaning "Mary's Cell" or "Church of Mary") is a small

crofting Crofting is a form of land tenure and small-scale food production particular to the Scottish Highlands, the islands of Scotland, and formerly on the Isle of Man. Within the 19th century townships, individual crofts were established on the bette ...

(

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

) hamlet on the north coast of

Ardnamurchan Ardnamurchan (, gd, Àird nam Murchan: headland of the great seas) is a peninsula in the ward management area of Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, noted for being very unspoiled and undisturbed. Its remoteness is accentuated by the main access ...

, western

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Geography

Kilmory is reached by a branch road off the B8007 road that runs from Salen to Achosnich by way of

Kilchoan Kilchoan ( gd, Cille Chòmhain) is a village on the Scottish peninsula of Ardnamurchan, beside the Sound of Mull in Lochaber, Highland. It is the most westerly village in mainland Britain, although several tiny hamlets lie further west on the ...

. All the roads in

are single track. There is a view north from the junction with the B8007 to the islands of

Rùm Rùm (), a Scottish Gaelic name often anglicised to Rum (), is one of the Small Isles of the Inner Hebrides, in the district of Lochaber, Scotland. For much of the 20th century the name became Rhum, a spelling invented by the former owner, Sir ...

Eigg Eigg (; gd, Eige; sco, Eigg) is one of the Small Isles in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. It lies to the south of the Isle of Skye and to the north of the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Eigg is long from north to south, and east to west. With an a ...

Muck Muck most often refers to: *Muck (soil), a soil made up primarily of humus from drained swampland Muck may also refer to: Places Europe * Muck, Scotland, an island * Isle of Muck, County Antrim, a small island connected by sand spit to Portmu ...

and Canna. The road descends northwards, crosses the Achateny Water that drains

Loch Mudle ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spelling ...

, passes through Branault and on to Kilmory, Swordle and Ockle. The branch road that enters Kilmory continues to its end at Balnaha Croft. A rough track (access on foot only) leads to very beautiful, wild and unspoilt Kilmory Bay, a sheltered bay with clear water, white sands and black, volcanic rock. It is one of the few sandy beaches on Ardnamurchan. Kilmory is overlooked by

Dun A dun is an ancient or medieval fort. In Ireland and Britain it is mainly a kind of hillfort and also a kind of Atlantic roundhouse. Etymology The term comes from Irish language, Irish ''dún'' or Scottish Gaelic ''dùn'' (meaning "fort"), ...

Mhurchaidh ().

Archaeology

A prominent feature in Kilmory is the graveyard. This is said to be the site of the original "Church of Mary", and it is suggested that outlines visible under the grass are part of that structure. Also lying in the grass near the centre of the graveyard is a stone said to be the font stone from the original church. Locally tradition has it that this stone never dries. The graveyard is surrounded by largely circular dry stone wall. There is a

Standing Stone A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright rock (geology), stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. T ...

in the field behind Branault. (NM526695) Whilst the age and significance of this stone are unknown it aligns, almost perfectly, with Ben Hiant to the SSE (528m, NM537632, the highest point in Western Ardnamurchan) and Sgurr Dearg (986m, NG443215) to the NNW, the high point at the western end of the

Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye (; gd, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or ; sco, Isle o Skye), is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated b ...

Cuillin The Cuillin ( gd, An Cuiltheann) is a range of mostly jagged rocky mountains on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The main Cuillin ridge is also called the Black Cuillin to distinguish it from the Red Cuillin ('), which lie to the east of Glen Sliga ...

Demographics

Like many other communities in the remote parts of Scotland the population of Kilmory has declined. There are twenty houses in Kilmory/Branault. , a population of thirteen occupies ten of these houses throughout the year. The other ten houses are used as holiday homes. The average age of the population is 68 years, with the youngest being 46 years.

Services

This decline has been mirrored by a steady decrease in services. In the early part of the 20th century, there was a shop in Branault (Mathieson) and one in Kilmory; up until the 1970s there were weekly visits by two grocery vans(mobile shops)(Burgess from

and McColl from

Acharacle Acharacle (, gd, text=Àth Tharracail) is a village in Ardnamurchan, Lochaber, within the county of Argyll. It is in the Highland Council area of Scotland. The place name is rendered ''Àth Tharracail'' in Scottish Gaelic, and means "Tarracal's ...

) as well as the Tuesday butcher's van (Cameron from Acharacle) and the Thursday butcher's van (Connel from Salen). In 2008

British Telecom BT Group plc (trade name, trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is th ...

threatened to withdraw the service from the one

telephone box A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; usually the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...

. June 2017, the phone was removed but then, in February 2018, reinstated on appeal. In August 2018, British Telecom still had not re-connected the telephone. It is also reported in 2017 that it is taking over a year to get a telephone "landline" installed.

Mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

reception in Kilmory is very poor as is the terrestrial

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

signal. In 2019 it has become possible to pick up a 4G signal in isolated spots around Kilmory. There are neither mains water nor mains drains in Kilmory. Internet access in Kilmory is difficult, even in 2017. There is no cable service; Kilmory is too far from the exchange to get Broadband through the phone line and the very very patchy mobile signal only offers a very slow GPRS signal, sometimes. A number of houses in Kilmory have installed satellite broadband systems. In 2019 Sunart Telecom, a locally based company, introduced a

wireless broadband Wireless broadband is telecommunications technology that provides high-speed wireless Internet access or computer networking access over a wide area. The term comprises both fixed and mobile broadband. The term broadband Originally the word "b ...

service. Some households have replaced their satellite services with the wireless broadband. Kilmory

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

closed in 1962 and the sub post office was closed in 2004. There is a notice board in Kilmory which usually lists the times of the Kilchoan-Tobermory ferry.

Religion

Kilmory supported two churches. Members of the

Free Church of Scotland Free Church of Scotland may refer to: * Free Church of Scotland (1843–1900), seceded in 1843 from the Church of Scotland. The majority merged in 1900 into the United Free Church of Scotland; historical * Free Church of Scotland (since 1900), rema ...

worshipped in a wooden building set amongst trees to the east of the village whilst members of the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland. The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...

worshipped in Kilmory Church which stands to the south of the village; services ceased here in 1989.

Development Issues

In 2009 and 2010 there has been talk of up to four new houses being built in Kilmory. One of these projects was abandoned as access was too difficult: progress on two others is delayed as there have been problems securing a reliable water supply. The spring from which most of the existing dwellings are provided with water has been deemed to not have sufficient flow to sustain the additional houses.

References

{{Lochaber Populated places in Lochaber Ardnamurchan