NN3213 : Pulpit Rock
taken 8 years ago, near to Ardlui, Argyll And Bute, Scotland
The canmore web site has some illustrations of the rock as it appeared when it was in use as a place of worship Link .
Thanks to the Explore Loch Lomond web site Link for the following information...
The Pulpit Rock (Clach nan Tarbh) The Stone of the Bulls.
Legend is that two bulls living on either side of the loch had a great battle here and due to the ferocity of the fight dislodged part of the mountainside.
A more likely story is that folk from the local area complained to the Rev Peter Proudfoot, about the eight-mile walk to and from their Sabbath devotions. The reverend said that If they built him a vestry and a pulpit, he would come and preach to them. Local men quarried out a 10ft-high hole in the face of the rock, large enough to hold the minister, and two others. A wooden platform with a pulpit was bolted to the rockface and a door was fitted to the hole in the rock.
Services were held here during the summer months for 75 years, until a mission church was established at Ardlui in 1895.
The services in those days could last for a very long time, so a stall was erected behind the Pulpit Rock selling bread, cheese and whisky which led to some people spending more time behind the rock than in front of the pulpit, which led a local wag to observe that "the Lord is at the front, but the Devil lies behind'."