- Location: B833, Garelochhead, Helensburgh G84 0EJ
- Opening times: 24 hours
- Entry: No charge
- Access: Parking on street (no charge)
This is an odd one, and one discovered by chance. Apropos of nothing, Annie and I decided on a drive around the Rosneath Peninsula one sunny day and came upon a brown sign for the Isabella Campbell Memorial just as we started down the B833 on the western shore of Gare Loch. After pulling into a convenient layby a consultation with Google Maps revealed the memorial was a mere 0.1 mile walk away. We had no idea who Isabella Campbell was, but decided to go and find out.
And that’s just what we didn’t.
We found the memorial easily enough but information on the memorialised was more difficult to come by. A well-maintained information sign informed us that Isabella lived between 1807 and 1827 and that she was the daughter of Donald Campbell, “an ensign in the West Coat Indian Regiment”, and the sister of Mary. Both Isabella and Mary were “said to have experienced an anointing of the Spirit” and that “Mary was said to possess the gift of tongues, and came to be associated with the Irvingites and the Catholic Apostolic Church”. All of which tells us more about her dad and sister than it does about Isabella, while assuming the casual reader will be au fait with phrases like “an anointing of the Spirit” and “Irvingites”.
The information board then ends with this astonishing claim: “The first ever recorded move of the Holy Spirit after the Reformation was recorded here in this part of the world in the early 1800s”. This information is presented in inverted commas suggesting a quotation, but no one is credited. Its presence here implies a link to Isabella, but none is provided. As information boards go this one is truly rubbish. Are we really to believe the Holy Spirit had been lying low since the introduction of the Protestant faith over 250 years earlier? And what’s with the ”this part of the world” and “in the early 1800s”? One would think something as momentous as “the first ever recorded move of the Holy Spirit after the Reformation” might have been recorded a little less vaguely.
Looking online doesn’t clear matters up any. Googling ‘Isabella Campbell’ soon leads to Mary, the Irvingites, the Catholic Apostolic Church, and a host of others, but not Isabella. There is a memoir of her available on Amazon but it was written by Robert Story, a contemporary, who pioneered the pattern of mentioning Isabella briefly before going on to talk at length about others, and also appears to be the source of all that is quoted above.
To summarise: Isabella Campbell lived in Garelochhead, was apparently devout, and died young. The End. And the Isabella Campbell Memorial apparently commemorates a life barely remembered, which is almost sadder than not having a memorial at all.
Destination or Diversion?
Take a diversion and divide it by ten, then takes one of those tenths and divide it by ten again. Repeat this process four times and then you have the Isabella Campbell Memorial.