Immaculate Conception Parish Church, Stratherrick

The Immaculate Conception Parish Church stands in the Dalcrag area of Whitebridge, a small Highland settlement beside Loch Ness. The white-painted building belongs to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen and serves an active parish linked to St Mary’s Church in Inverness. It forms part of the Loch Ness Catholic Parishes group and contains a Christian pilgrimage shrine dedicated to ‘Our Lady of the Highlands’. A new outdoor Mass stone at the Marian grotto was blessed by Bishop Hugh Gilbert in March 2017. The church was erected in 1859 after Catholic Emancipation, designed by Ross and Joass. Its first altar was wooden, later replaced by a marble one brought from St Mary’s Church in Nairn. Before the church existed, priests from Glenmoriston crossed Loch Ness by boat to celebrate Tridentine Mass in a Dalcrag house. In December 1873, St Mary MacKillop visited from Australia and praised the simplicity of the parish priest’s quarters under Fr Bissett. Inside, visitors find a clean and modest presbytery and a marble altar relocated from Nairn. The grounds hold the modern Marian grotto with its consecrated Mass stone. Beyond the church, Loch Ness stretches along the glen, and the surrounding Stratherrick hills rise gently. The building remains a quiet place for prayer and pilgrimage in the heart of the Highlands.