Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A two-minute read · 800 BC–now
Fort William's record here gathers around a single point on the A82, beside Glencoe's Episcopal Church of St Mary. Built in 1880 for a divided glen, the church has stood through changing congregations and memorials, while the road beside it became one of Scotland's most dangerous stretches.
The short answer
Episcopal Church of St Mary, Glencoe, stands beside the A82 near Fort William, built in 1880 by Bishop Chinery-Haldane and his wife to a design by Alexander Ross. Its granite font, gilded reredos and brass eagle lectern remain inside, while the A82 outside recorded 55 serious crashes and 18 deaths between 2017 and 2019.
Main street, Glencoe village 1968 — 1968 · Jim Barton · CC BY-SA 2.0
1880 and after
Bishop Chinery-Haldane built a Gothic church for Glencoe
Episcopal Church Of St Mary, Glencoe is a working Scottish Episcopal church, still standing on the north side of Glencoe's main street. It is a plain Gothic building of local stone, with a small spired bellcote and a roof of Ballachulish slate. Bishop Chinery-Haldane and his wife paid for it in 1880, hiring the architect Alexander Ross, who also built a rectory, a school and a teacher's house alongside it that same year.
The church filled slowly with gifts from the families around it. A red Peterhead granite font arrived in 1890, given in memory of Mrs Burns Macdonald, a descendant of an old Glencoe family. A carved oak cover was fitted to it decades later. Around 1920, Lord and Lady Strathcona gave the church its gilded wooden altar and reredos, in memory of their mother. Inside, a brass eagle lectern and carved pews still stand, the fittings the guidebooks call unusually fine for so small a parish.
The church's own display links its congregation to the Glencoe massacre of 1692, suggesting the MacDonalds of the glen were killed partly for being Episcopalian, not only for being Jacobites.
1933 to 1936
A font cover and a book recorded the church's treasures
In 1933, a carved wooden cover was added to the font's bowl, finishing off a gift given more than forty years earlier. Three years later, G B Brook wrote up the church's history in a short book, St Mary's Glencoe: the Church and Its Treasures, recording the windows, the altar and the font for anyone who came after.
1971
Historic Scotland listed the church as category C
Historic Environment Scotland listed the church as a category C building in 1971, along with its hall next door, the old school building linked to it by a porch. The listing protects the stonework, the slate roof and the fittings inside, but the church has stayed a working parish, not a museum.
2017 to 2021
The A82 became Scotland's most dangerous trunk road
The road outside, the A82, carries a darker record than the church does. Between 2017 and the summer of 2019, it recorded 55 serious crashes and 18 deaths, making it the most dangerous trunk road in Scotland. By 2021, 50 people had died on it since 2010. In July of that year, a 56-year-old motorcyclist was killed in a collision with a car near the Corran Ferry turn-off, a few miles west of Glencoe, and died later at Belford Hospital in Fort William.
Today
The church still holds the gifts its parishioners gave
Episcopal Church of St Mary, Glencoe still holds services on the same site where Bishop Chinery-Haldane raised it in 1880. The granite font, the gilded reredos and the brass eagle lectern are all still inside, much as G B Brook described them. Outside its door, the A82 carries traffic straight through Glencoe village, past the glen where the massacre the church still remembers took place nearly three and a half centuries ago.
The church stands on Glencoe's main street, a small Gothic building still used for worship, beside a road with one of the worst safety records in Scotland.
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Between 2017 and 2021 the A82, which runs right past this spot, recorded 55 serious collisions and 18 fatalities, the worst toll of any trunk road in Scotland.
On 13 June 2024 a three-vehicle crash on the A82 near Carr's Corner, about a mile west of Fort William, left three people seriously injured and a 42-year-old woman charged.
What was here before the current church was built?
The material does not describe what stood on the site before 1880; that year Bishop Chinery-Haldane and his wife built the Gothic-style stone church, hiring architect Alexander Ross, who also added a rectory, a school and a teacher's house alongside it.
What happened at Episcopal Church of St Mary, Glencoe?
Bishop Chinery-Haldane and his wife built the church in 1880, and over the following decades it received gifts including a red Peterhead granite font in 1890, a gilded altar and reredos from Lord and Lady Strathcona's family around 1920, and a carved oak font cover added in 1933.
Who paid for St Mary's Church in Glencoe?
Bishop Chinery-Haldane and his wife paid for the church in 1880, hiring architect Alexander Ross to design it along with a rectory, school and teacher's house.
Is the church still used today?
Yes, the church remains a working Scottish Episcopal parish, still holding services on the same site where it was built in 1880, with its granite font, gilded reredos and brass eagle lectern still inside.
Why is the A82 near Glencoe considered dangerous?
Between 2017 and the summer of 2019 the A82 recorded 55 serious crashes and 18 deaths, making it the most dangerous trunk road in Scotland, and by 2021 fifty people had died on it since 2010.
Is the church protected as a listed building?
Historic Environment Scotland listed the church as a category C building in 1971, along with its adjoining hall, the former school building linked to it by a porch.
