196 Elwyndale andits Three Toivers. By J. Freer. 



Besides the mounds marking the main buildings, there are 

 traces of several cottages on the south side of the larger en- 

 closures ; these are called "the poor widows' houses," most 

 probably the dwelling places of widows who performed the 

 dairy work required for the sixty cows. 



A little east from Colmslie Tower, in a cultivated field called 

 the Chapel Park, stand two ash trees some distance apart. 

 These trees mark the site of an old church or chapel dedicated 

 to St. Colm, or St. Columba to use the Latin form of the name. 

 Not a stone of this old church is now standing, though the keen 

 antiquarian eye can discern in the walls of an old mill close at 

 hand, stones not in keeping with their neiohbours, and which 

 must have been ti'ansferred from some older building, perhaps 

 from the old church of St. Colm. This saint Avas the great 

 Culdee who introduced Christianity into Scotland north of the 

 Forth in the 6th century, and founded the monastery of lona. 

 Other Culdees, under the leadership of Aidan, preached the 

 Christian religion throughout Northumbria, and brought its 

 inhabitants to the faith in the course of the seventh centur}^ and 

 this chapel at Colmslie was probably one of their earliest foun- 

 dations bearing St. Colm's name, and still giving a name to 

 the two extensive farms of Colmslie and Colmsliehill. As 

 Culdeeism was out of fashion by the time that the Scots got 

 possession of this part of the country, it is extremely unlikely 

 that any church would be dedicated to St. Columba at this late 

 period, and it seems almost a matter of certainty that the 

 Colmslie chapel or cell must have been dedicated to St. Columba 

 sometime between 630 and 664 a.d., at which later date the 

 Culdees left Northumbria as a body, though small numbers of 

 them must have lingered on. 



Tradition has it that a Graveyard was attached to this chapel, 

 and that this graveyard was ploughed up early last century, 

 with the result that the man who ploughed it died in great 

 agony within three days — the sacrilege and the swift punish- 

 ment being, as a matter of course, connected together in the 

 minds of the inhabitants of the district. 



Milne, in his History, conjectures that the Cairncrosses of 

 Elwyndale were a branch of the family of Balmashannan, and 

 mentions some of the prominent men of both families, including 

 a Bishop of the time of James V., and another Bishop of Raphoe 

 at the time of the Revolution. It is somewhat curious that the 



