Kiltearn

Associated Chapels: Balcony {NGR NH 624653}; Culnaskeath/Wester Fowlis {NGR NH 578638}.

Parish Church: OS Ref: NGR NH 617652 H.E.S. No: NH66NW 1.00 Dedication: St Tighernac

The church of Kiltearn is said to have been dedicated to "The Lord". According to this view, Kiltearn is derived from the Gaelic - Kil Tighearn, "church of the Lord". Others think that the name is a commemoration of St Tighernach (d.506AD). Some scholars say that Tighernach was educated at the Cadida Cassa of Whithorn.

Apparently an independent parsonage in 1274, this church had been erected into a prebend of Ross by 1445, and it so continued, the cure being a vicarage perpetual. There was a manse for the canon who held the Kiltearn prebend within the precincts of the Chanonry at Fortrose Cathedral.

Kiltearn church was built in 1791 around a much older structure. It stands close to the shore of the Cromarty Firth, on the right bank of the Burn of Skiach. At the east end there are clasping angle-buttresses and the remains of a hood-moulded window, both survivals from the church's late-medieval predecessor. There are several 17th and 18th century gravestones in the graveyard. The sexton recalled that the former minister, who moved to Brechin, had said the church was on the site of a monastery.

Kiltearn was joined to Lemlair parish in 1618, whereupon the building at Lemlair was abandoned, though burials continued in the kirkyard for many years. There are two fairs held yearly in Kiltearn parish: on the first Tuesday in June; and the first Tuesday of December.

The Monros of Foulis were principal heritors of the old parish church of Kiltearn.

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