Foundation of the Parish
On 25th January 1633 there was laid before the Commission for the Plantation of Kirks by heritors (landowners) and inhabitants of parts of the parishes of Dalry and Kells that were some 12 miles from the two parish churches, a petition for their land to be set apart as a new parish. They declared that distance from their parish churches meant that they were deprived of the comfort of the word and benefit of the sacraments; and many poor people were often buried in the fields, having none to carry them to the kirkyards for burial.
Prior to that, their petition had been favourably received by the bishop of Galloway, the Presbytery and the ministers of Kells and Dalry. The Commission were supportive, and the bishop gave his approval to the erection of a ‘new kirk to be called the kirk of Carsphairn, and to the dismembering of the aforesaid eighty merk land from Kells and Dalry’. The heritors and inhabitants proceeded to build a new church and to call and support a minister, all at their own expense.
There were, however, various procedures that had to be followed to erect a new parish.
It would seem that a civil process began happening alongside the ecclesiastical processes, for on 31st July 1635 Charles I, by a charter in favour of Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, erected the hamlet of Tantallocholme, adjoining the parish church of Carsphairn, into a free burgh of barony to be styled Kirkton. It would seem therefore that the village and the church came into existence under the name of ‘Carsphairn’ at the same time.