Editing Strontian (section)

=== Floating Free Church ===
Strontian was the site of reputedly the first moored boat church in the country.

Following the [[Disruption of 1843]] in which the Church of Scotland Free (later the [[Free Church of Scotland (1843–1900)|Free Church of Scotland]]) walked out of the Church of Scotland General Assembly, a congregation of 500 members around Strontian petitioned [[Riddell Baronets|Sir James Riddell]], who then owned the entirety of Ardnamurchan, for land and permission to build a new church. A number of attendants affirmed, in testimony to the Select Committee on Sites for Churches, illnesses contracted by worshippers attending services held outdoors in inclement weather. A letter by Riddell to Graham Speirs, Esq., notes ''"I find it impossible, conscientiously, to grant sites for churches, manses, and schools, which would imply a sanction on my part, and give a perpetuity on my estates, to a system which I believe to be anti-social and anti-Christian."''<ref>Reports from the Select Committee on Sites for Churches (Scotland) (1847)</ref>

With permission refused, subscriptions were taken from the local congregants of £1,400 to have a suitable craft built in Clyde. A floating church was established 150 metres offshore in [[Loch Sunart]] in 1846.<ref>''Annals of the Disruption; with extracts from the narratives of Ministers who left the Scottish Establishment in 1843'', by Rev Thomas Brown (1893).</ref>
Eventually a site was obtained in nearby Acharacle and a Free Church was built there in 1868.