Charity buys historic church and burial ground
Bristol-born Dr Elizabeth Blackwell holidayed in Argyll and is buried at Kilmun
- Published
A charity has taken over a historic Argyll church and its mausoleum, where the first female doctor in the United States is buried.
Bristol-born Elizabeth Blackwell frequently holidayed in Kilmun and was buried at the village's St Munns Church after she died in 1910.
Charity Historic Kilmun has bought the church and its 500-year-old Argyll Mausoleum.
The church has a rare water-powered pipe organ, which was installed in 1909. It has a hydraulic engine to push air through it.
Historic Kilmun said it hoped to increase community involvement with the building, and also raise funds to preserve it.
The site had been used as a place of worship since the 7th Century and its mausoleum has been a burial place for dukes and earls of Argyll for centuries.
St Munns Church was built on a site which has been a place of worship since the 7th Century
When she was a girl, Dr Blackwell and her family emigrated to New York.
The death of a terminally-ill family friend inspired her to become a doctor but, according to the University of Bristol, only one college agreed - as "a joke" - to allow her to study medicine.
She became the first woman in the US to gain a medical degree and, on returning to England, was the first woman to be named on the British General Medical Council's medical register.
She died in Hastings, East Sussex.