St Mary's Church, Grandtully

St Mary's Church stands beside a farm in Strathtay near Grandtully, a long, low, white-harled building that looks austere from outside and hides one of Scotland's great painted ceilings. A church here is recorded about 1250, and the present building probably dates from about 1533. Around 1636 Sir William Stewart of Grandtully and Dame Agnes Moncrieffe extended it and installed the painted ceiling, at a time when Charles I was encouraging decoration in Scottish churches. It is one of only two 17th-century church ceilings in Scotland still in their original setting, the other being the Skelmorlie Aisle at Largs. Twenty-eight roundels of saints, proverbs and Stewart heraldry sit among fruit, flowers and reclining angels, and at the centre the dead rise from their graves at the call of two angels while a dying man in a canopied bed is about to be struck down by Death. Reviewers say the door is stiff and needs a firm push, and to switch on the lights to see the ceiling.