Site Report

WoSASPIN 7037
NS38NW 1 3070 8658.
(NS 3070 8658) St. Bride's Chapel (NR) (Site of)
OS 6" map (1923)

There was a chapel, dedicated to St Bride, at Kilbride before 1648.
J Irving 1879

The remains of the chapel at Kilbride, Geln Fruin, are still known as "Chapel Diarmid" (but see also the burial ground - Dunbar 13 NW 2 - called, at one time, Chapel Dermid).
Orig Paroch Scot 1850

The ruins of an old chapel stood near the stream but all that now remain are a font and stones, built into the school-house and adjacent farm-steading.
W Battram 1864

No trace of a building remains but the site is apparently a large circular cairn, now occupied by Glenfruin School. Near the door of the school-house. within the garden and close to the road, is an erect slab 2 feet 8 inches in height, 16 inches wide and 9 inches thick. On it there is a fine sculptured cross in relief, of the Keills type, fairly well preserved. The stone was dug up some years ago.
A D Lacaille 1924

The hospital shown at Kilbride on the 1st edition of the Monastic Britain Map is unauthenticated.
Information from D E Easson letter, 7 February 1957.

No remains of the chapel are to be found. The cross-slab, as described by Lacaille, stands at NS 3069 8661.
Visited by OS (EGC) 18 January 1963

NS 307 865 A weathered cross-slab standing in a garden may indicate the approximate site of St Bride's Chapel, although the NSA (1845) suggests that it may have stood 2km to the NW at the burial-ground of Chapel Dermid (NS28NE 5).
RCAHMS 1978, visited August 1977
NSA 1845; Orig Paroch Scot 1850; W Battrum 18647; J Irving 1879; A D Lacaille 1924

The former schoolhouse on the NE bank of the Fruin Water, 2.2km SE of Ballevoulin (No.13), is believed to stand on or close to the site of St Bride's Chapel (1). The property was known in the 17th century as Chapel of Glen Fruin, and lies between the farms of East and West Kilbride. Stones from the chapel are said to have been built into the schoolhouse (2), and a cross-marked slab found buried in the grounds early in the 20th century stands at the NE edge of the garden close to the road.
The slab is of sandstone and measures 0.9m in visible height by 0.48m and 0.23m thick. It is carved in false relief within a flat margin varying in width from 50mm to 80mm, and bears a Latin cross with a square central expansion and transverse bars at the ends of the transom. The top arm and shaft taper slightly towards the centre, and there is an additional bar, perhaps representing a cross-base, at the foot.
Footnotes:
(1) H Campbell 1933, no.478; Name Book, Dunbartonshire, No.17, pp.53-4; Battrum's Guide to Helensburgh and Neighbourhood 1865, 67; Sir W Fraser 1869, 2, 116-17; J Irving 1879, 2, 290, 302. This was proposed in the 17th century as the site for a chapel of ease, and it remained in ecclesiastical ownership in the 19th century (Irving, op.cit., 302).
(2) Battrum, loc. cit. For a medieval stoup which may have come from this site, see Lacaille 1935, 418-19.
Lacaille 1924, 128-30; RCAHMS 1978d, no.70.
I Fisher 2001, 84.