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Saint Conan’s Kirk is one the most popular things to visit in Argyll. It was designed by the architect Walter Douglas Campbell, a younger brother of Archibald Campbell, 1st Baron Blythswood. It was built in 1881-1886; and substantially extended from 1906 to 1914, the year of his death. Campbell also designed in similar style the family mansion nearby on Innis Chonain for himself, his artist sister Helen and mother, the elderly Mrs Caroline Campbell of Blythswood, formerly resident in Blythswood House downriver from Glasgow. The heavy oak beams in the cloister are believed to have come from the (then) recently broken up wooden battleships, HMS Caledonia and HMS Duke of Wellington.
An eclectic blend of church styles, from ancient Roman to Norman, it is built of local stone. It consists of a nave and chancel, with the chancel-stalls being canopied. Large, unsmoothed boulders of granite from nearby Ben Cruachan, form the piers which carry the chancel arch, and the transepts make the Sacred Cross. There is also a tower and spire. Walter was unmarried and left no heirs. His sister Helen Douglas Campbell ensured that final work was in progress by 1927, the year of her death. The Kirk was consecrated in 1930.
Fittings included a small organ. One ancient window from South Leith Parish Church was re-used at St Conan's. It also houses a fragment of bone that is said to have come from Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland.
Towering 52 meters above the sea, Bengtskär lighthouse is the tallest one in Scandinavia. The building started in in 1905 after the shipwreck of S/S Helsingfors and was completed in 1906. The lighthouse was designed by architect Florentin Granholm. On December a special petrol lantern, designed and built in Paris, was brought to Bengtskär and installed atop the tower.
German fleet bombarded Bengstkär in the First World War in 1914. Since the Gulf of Finland was heavily mined, it was not until 1919 that the surrounding seas were declared safe for shipping, that the light was lit again.
After the war the military value of Bengtskär increased as part of the defence system of independent Finland. In Second World War (1941) Soviet Union made a suprise attack to island. After a bloody battle, the small Finnish garrison emerged victorious. Intermittent repairs to the facility continued during the post-war period.