Carmichael Church was founded at the beginning of the 12th Century and at that time was connected with the see
of Glasgow. The original site was not the present one but lay approximately a mile south east of the modern building on a
hill known as Kirkhill within the present Carmichael estate. This earlier church was dedicated to St Michael.
(The name Carmichael is thought to derive from the Brythonic Llanmichael meaning Church of St Michael.)
Early in the reign of Robert the Bruce (1306 – 1329) the King granted the right of patronage to the
Douglases, a highly influential Scottish magnate family. The Douglas earls retained this right for 400 years when it passed to the Carmichael family.
At the site of the present church two reminders exist of the former building at Kirkhill. The outside stone stair
leading to the "Carmichael Loft" is pre-reformation and was transported from the former church. In addition many old and interesting gravestones can be found in the Kirkyard which predate the present building. These were also brought from the old site at Kirkhill. The present church dates from 1750.
1952 Carmichael parish was linked with the neighbouring parish of Pettinain. The present church building at Pettinain is the successor of earlier places of Christian worship upon or very close to this site. Little is known of the church origins, but it was a chaplainry attached to St Kentigern Church, Lanark, in 1150, when both churches were granted by David I to the abbot and canons of Dryburgh Abbey. In the mid-fifteenth century Pettinain appears to have been separated from its mother church, but it remained one of the possessions of the Dryburgh monks until after the Reformation in 1560.
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