Kilmacolm is a village as well as civil parish in the Inverclyde council area, and also the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It rests on the north slope of the Gryffe Valley, 7 1/2 miles (12.1 km) south-east of Greenock and around 15 miles (24 km) west of the city of Glasgow. The village has a population of around 4,000 and also becomes part of a larger civil parish which covers a huge country hinterland of 15,000 hectares (150 km2; 58 sq mi) having within it the smaller settlement of Quarrier's Village, initially developed as a 19th-century residential orphans' residence. The area bordering the town was resolved in primitive times as well as became part of a feudal society with the parish split in between separate estates for much of its background. The town itself remained small, offering solutions to close-by farm areas and working as a spiritual center for the parish. The name of the town derives from the Scottish Gaelic Cill MoCholuim, showing the devotion of its church to St Columba. The parish church was mentioned in a papal bull of 1225 revealing its subservience to Paisley Abbey, as well as it rests on the site of an ancient religious community dating to the 5th or 6th centuries. Again in the 13th century, Duchal Castle was built in the parish and also is notable for being besieged by King James IV of Scotland in 1489, adhering to the resident Lyle household's support of an insurrection versus him. Feuding in between the worthy family members of Kilmacolm was commonplace between Ages, as well as in the 16th as well as 17th centuries, the parish again concerned the focus of the Crown for supplying support to forbidden spiritual Covenanters. The character of the village transformed dramatically in the Victorian period, with the arrival of the railway in Kilmacolm in 1869. Most of Kilmacolm's modern-day buildings were constructed between this day and also the outbreak of World War I. The development of such transport links enabled the town to broaden as a wealthy dorm room village serving the close-by metropolitan centres of Glasgow, Paisley and also Greenock. The economic situation of the village showed this population change, relocating far from its standard dependence on farming to supplying tertiary field solutions to locals and also site visitors.