I’ve had the pleasure of studying Scottish churches for 14 years now and my PhD involved exploring 49 buildings across the length and breadth of Scotland, but never before have I had to rank them or choose which ones are most ‘valuable’. One major part of the ReACH project has been to do just that. We needed to choose ten at-risk churches in Scotland as case studies, where we visit them for a full heritage survey and hold an open day to investigate their social value. Just 10 churches out of more than 400 – no small task!
A cheeky remix of an image of an unimpressed Virgin Mary, part of the Annunciation from a 15th-century Flemish Book of Hours, f.45v, MS 312, Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh (CC).
I have a tentacular spreadsheet listing all the churches in Scotland that have recently closed as places of worship or are at risk of closing in the coming years. Within those unglamorous, finance-coded cells, rows, and columns have been my attempts to distil the complex wonders of hundreds of individual buildings. For the last few months, I have painstakingly checked each one against various lists which already exist to mark out which buildings are nationally important, and which may be more locally cherished. Adding information, refining it, removing churches which have been stripped of historical character, cutting the lists down and down to work out which ones we should mark for in-depth studies. It’s been eye-wateringly laborious as I squint at my screen. It’s also been a chance for me to discover churches which weren’t previously on my radar and appreciate anew the brilliant diversity of church heritage in Scotland.
My method looked simple on paper: take the lists of closing churches and check them against various ways people have prioritised them before, then slowly whittle them down to a shortlist. My first port of call was obvious, the listings by Historic Environment Scotland. But several people cautioned me not to rely on them uncritically, so I cast my net further. I added other churches where, for one reason or another, the statutory listing alone didn’t really reflect their importance. In 2000, Aonghus MacKechnie and Richard Fawcett (two world experts in Scottish church architecture) wrote a report for Historic Scotland with long lists of churches ‘worthy of consideration for being taken into state care’, which was incredibly helpful. I searched through other sources, adding other churches which might have been overlooked. What started as a spreadsheet quickly became a collaborative exercise. Emily, our Community Officer, added in churches which may not be architecturally significant, but which had amazing social history. DJ from Scotlands Churches Trust drew on his huge knowledge to single out lesser-known gems. We sent our data to our Action Group who recommended yet more for the list. Glass experts from Rainbow Glass Studio steered us on where we would find William Morris and Douglas Strachan designs, a member of the Pictish Art Society flagged churches with early medieval carved stones, and staff from the Community Ownership Support Service told us where need was most urgent.
Every church on the resulting long list is special. There’s Maxwell Mearns church in Renfrewshire, a 15th-century tower house converted into a church and adorned with a halo-like circular addition for worship built out of concrete and corrugated metal sheeting in the 1970s. Linton Kirk in the Borders, where the dreaded Linton worm (dragon) slayed by Sir William de Somerville crouches in the 12th-century tympanum, and the vivid colours of stained glass by Douglas Strachan spill over the interior. Wellington (or Kelvin West) church in Glasgow, where a breathing place garden, painted ceiling, and delicately wrought 1902 light fittings sit behind the muscular Greek Revival portico.
The 10 case studies we eventually chose are emphatically not a list of the ReACH team’s 10 best churches. Rather, they are a cross section of Scotland’s church heritage at a time of enormous change. We were mindful that our picks should represent a variety of geographical areas in Scotland, as well as a mixture of date ranges, where the churches sit in their immediate landscape, the social makeup of their local communities, and what stage a church is at in its transition to new uses. All of the churches we have chosen for our 10 case studies have fantastic heritage and social value, but they represent the rule, rather than being the exception to it. I could easily have chosen 50 or 100 brilliant churches! Over the coming months, we’ll be introducing each of our case study churches and sharing what makes them special.
Throughout this process, I was very aware that my research into each church could only ever be brief. There are simply too many remarkable buildings, and with a two-year project, time is always ticking – not only for ReACH, but for the many churches facing uncertain futures. As one of her first tasks, our new Research Officer, Rachel Pickering, is revisiting the long list and researching them more carefully, adding their information to our database. I am really excited for our next case studies and only hope I can return at some point to the countless other churches I’ve ‘met’ through this process, to give them the attention that they deserve.
See our case study on Whitekirk here, and please check out our events page to get involved in our heritage recording and social value open days.
Written by Dr Lizzie Swarbrick, Research Manager for Research in Action on Church Heritage
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