Dingwall

Associated Chapels: St Clement's {NGR NH 550590}.

Parish Church: OS Ref: NGR NH 550590 H.E.S. No: NH55NW 5 Dedication: St Colin

The parish church of Dingwall bears a most unusual dedication - to St Colin. However, most scholars today would agree that this is, perhaps, a Gaelic name 'in disguise'.

The church was gifted to the Priory of Urquhard. When that priory amalgamated with Pluscarden Priory (1454) the church of Dingwall passed into the hands of the new prior. This annexation was still effective in 1463 when, in a dispute between the bishop of Ross and the priory regarding this church, a decision was given infavour of the Priory. Eventually, however, the episcopacy got its way and by 1501 there are instances of "prebendaries/canons of Dingwall" appearing in the historical record although the matter is far from clear.

Within the bounds of the parish church there was a chapel of St Clement, often referred to as the "St Clement's Aisle". It was much used for the burial of local nobility. Such was the case when, "April 10, 1662: Kenneth McKenzy of Scattual died, a gallant and great spirit; he was interred in St Clemens Chappell in Dingwall. My Lord Lovat paraded there with near a 100 horse and 500 foot."

"The church of Dingwall is nearly a ruin (c.1790). It had connected with it, by wide arches, one large chapel, and several small ones, which were probably used both as cemeteries and places of devotion They (the parishoners) have long been shut out from the church, and used only as burying places." [Old Stat. Acc., Vol. iii, p.11]

A chaplainry of St Lawrence in the castle of Dingwall is mentioned in various 16th-century charters. For example, after the Second Reformation, in 1575, King James VI gave the chaplainry of St Lawrence in Dingwall to James Davidson, son of John Davidson, tailor in Edinburgh, to keep him at school (along with the chaplainry of Artafally, in Redcastle); in 1586 his brother, Thomas Davidson, got the same for seven years to support him in the College of Cambridge in England.

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