11843: Parish Schoolhouse, Keose

The 1st Ordinance Survey, 1848-1853 states that the Parish Schoolhouse is a stone and slated building in the village of Keose on the margin of Loch Erisort. This is the parochial school of the parish of Lochs, supported in a similar manner to parish schools throughout Scotland. James Strachan is the name of the present teacher whose salary amounts to about 28 per annum. There are very few people attending owing to the greater number of the inhabitants sending their children to the Free Church school.

The Parish School closed in 1878. After the building was no longer occupied, the Rev Ewen Campbell wanted to acquire the land on which the school stood. This was owned by the Lochs School Board, of which Mr Campbell was a member. He wrote to the Board in a letter dated 7 September 1887 requesting that the ownership of the school be transferred to him as a private individual. The request was unanimously rejected but Mr Campbell took matters into his own hands. He demolished the school and cleared the site.

The School Board reacted angrily to this action and sold the site to the Lochs Parochial Board for the sum of 25 in June 1888. The Parochial Board had been looking for a site for a house and surgery for the parish doctors, who since the post of "Doctor of the parish of Lochs" had been created in 1875, had been without a permanent dwelling.