Kincardine
Associated Chapels: Na Claignean (Old Fearn) {NGR NH 472899}; Achnahanat {NGR NH 51_98_}; Kilmachalmag {NGR NH 505987}.
Parish Church: OS Ref: NGR NH 606894 H.E.S. No: NH68NW 6.00 Dedication: St Columba
This parish stretches on the north along the whole course of the river Oikel (the boundary between Ross and Sutherland) and along its estuary the Dornoch Firth as far as the water of Fearn, by which it is bounded on the east. It is mountainous and abounds with small lochs. Its western part, a hilly district of great extent, is named the Forest of Balnagowan or Frevater.
Apparently an independent parsonage in 1274, this church had been erected into a prebend of Ross by 1440. It so continued to the time of the Reformation, the cure being a vicarage perpetual. The rector of Kincardine was a canon of the cathedral, and as such had a manse within the canonry of Ross.
The dedication to St Columba would indicate that this is a Christian site of some antiquity.
The church, built in 1799, seems to occupy the site of its predecessors at the north of a small stream on the Dornoch Firth about a mile east of Invercarron. About the year 1790 the church was thatched with heather.
Near the church there was a walled lane terminating in a semicircular space, said to have been used of old for wapinshawings. [O.P.S., 2.2, p.414]
In the graveyard is the Kincardine Stone, a Pictish grave marker thought to date back to the mid 700s.
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