A Brief History
Origins
No one knows when a church was first built on this site. It is possible that one was erected in the course of missionary activity by monks from the monastery established on the Island of Lindisfarne, two miles off the Northumbrian Coast some twelve miles south of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Led by their first Abbot, Aidan (died 651), and his successors in the second half of the seventh century, the monks of Lindisfarne travelled all over the north-east of England and the south-east of Scotland to preach, to teach, to baptise and to form small communities of Christian believers.
However, since no evidence from this early period survives, it remains a matter of speculation whether a church was built at Chirnside then or at a later date.
King Edgar
It is not until the 12th century that any mention of Chirnside is found in ancient records. At the beginning of that century the Scottish King, Edgar (reigned 1097 – 1107), son of Malcolm Canmore and the saintly Margaret, made several gifts of land to the monks of St Cuthbert at Durham.
Much of this land lay in Berwickshire, where many parishes, including Chirnside, were served by the monks in return for a steady income from the parish and its produce. Based as they were at Durham, resting place of the mortal remains of Cuthbert, the great Northumbrian saint who had been a prior of Lindisfarne in the 7th Century, the monks did not work in the parishes gifted to them, but would employ a priest to say Mass daily in the parish church and to administer the sacraments to the parishioners.
Of the small building erected nearly 900 years ago little now survives. The single visible relic is the arch above the south-west door. Although now much worn by the weather, it is still recognisably late Saxon or early Norman in design. The simple chevron pattern has been incorporated in the communion table installed in 1912.
Within the present south wall (behind the pulpit) there will be stones used in various buildings on this site since the 12th century.
Reformation
The 12th Century church was probably a plain rectangular structure, with a door at the south-west corner and a font just inside it. Under a thatched roof there would be bare earth floors. There would be no pews, no heating, no artificial lighting. There may have been a pulpit. Dominating the interior would be an altar at the east end, where every day the parish priest would say mass.
All changed with the Scottish Reformation of 1560. As part of the Reformers’ programme churches had to be altered and restored. Where a building was in a ruinous condition, it had to be repaired. Since the Mass was no longer the main act of worship, the altar would be removed. In line with the Reformers’ emphasis on the reading and preaching of the Word of God, the pulpit would be given a prominent place, with a reading-desk below it from which the congregation would be instructed and offenders admonished.
In an age when there was no statutory provision made for the sick, the poor and the elderly, voluntary church collections were taken at the door as worshippers arrived for services. There would be a poor-box and above it was the sign now to be seen on the south wall of the church to the left of the pulpit.
Expansion
With a few alterations, including the removal of an old defensive tower at the west of the building, Chirnside Church remained much as it had been for nearly 300 years. In the 1830’s, after complaints had been made about lack of seating in the church, it was decided to enlarge the north aisle, the part of the church directly facing the pulpit. It would appear that little else was done at that time to improve the building.
In 1978 Mr Mitchell Innes of Whitehall, a Heritor of the Parish, one of the local landowners responsible for the upkeep of the church building, made this complaint:
“From the inconvenient situation, dilapidated condition and very imperfect construction of the present Parish Church of Chirnside, I am of the opinion that it ought to be pulled down and another built on a better site more in accordance with the present feeling of the countryside as to what is due to the House of God, and the comfort of those who worship in it…”
But despite his enthusiasm for a new building, perhaps in imitation of one going up elsewhere, despite the wish of the Minister and Kirk Session for a new church large enough to accommodate all the parishioners, and despite the order of the Presbytery of Chirnside to provide a new church, the majority of the Heritors would agree to no more than a restricted programme of repairs to the floors, walls and roof. Chirnside Parish Church was to remain “a mean and unecclesiastical looking structure”, as one local writer described it, for a further thirty years.
Improvements
In the first decade of the 20th Century, extensive alterations and improvements gave this building it’s present shape and distinctive appearance. In 1904 Fanny, Lady Tweedmouth, an aunt of Winston Churchill, died and was buried to the west of the church. In loving remembrance of his wife Edward Marjoribanks, 2nd Baron Tweedmouth, renovated and remodelled the interior of the church, added the hall and vestry on the north side, and built the tower which now adorns an otherwise plain and simple traditional country Kirk (see the poem below). In the course of this extensive building operation an alabaster bas-relief of Lady Tweedmouth was installed in the alcove to the north-west of the pulpit.
After Lord Tweedmouth’s death in 1909 his son bought two old cottages to the west of the church, cleared the ground and erected a memorial gateway in memory of his late father.
The only major change within the building since Lord Tweedmouth’s benefactions has been the enlargement of the platform beneath the pulpit to take a communion table in 1911. Previously the congregation could not have seen the table, which was in a corner below the pulpit. The stairs leading to the pulpit were swung round to their present position and a new table, made by local joiners, installed in the space available.
A solid-fuel boiler and heating pipes were installed in 1952 shortly after the old oil-lamps had been replaced by electric lights. The lighting was improved in 1968 and re-wired in 1989. A programme of repair and maintenance, begun in 1987, was extended to include work on the tower and steeple, work continued into the early 1990’s. 2003 has seen the interior of the church receive a ‘spring clean’ which included new carpets, pew cushions, blinds and a coat of paint. The hall was refurbished, new toilets were installed to include facilities for the disabled and a complete kitchen was fitted.
The church is now right up to date with modern technology having received a grant from the Church of Scotland Parish Development Fund and the Elizabeth Hume Fund, we have been able to install computers with internet access in the church hall.
Other Churches in Chirnside
Divisions within the Scottish Church meant that in the 18th and 19th centuries many relatively small communities could have several different denominations represented within it , each with it’s own place of worship. In Chirnside there were two other buildings used by congregations of Churches which had broken away from the Church of Scotland and were eventually re-united with it.
At the top of Crosshill there was a Cameronian meeting-house, which became a Reformed Presbyterian Church. After various unions nationally it was successfully held by the Free Church and the United Free Church, before passing into the Church of Scotland in 1929. A local union took place in 1952 and the North Church, as it was known, ceased to be a place of worship in 1973. The church, along with an adjoining hall, was handed over to the Regional Council in 1984 and has been developed as a Community Centre.
To the north of the village, behind the Post Office, was the former Erskine Church, built in 1837 for the United Secession congregation and named after the sons of a minister at Chirnside in the 1690’s, Rev Henry Erskine. Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine led a group of ministers and congregations anxious to maintain the right of a congregation to elect and call its own minister, splitting away from the mainstream Church of Scotland in 1733. The congregation using the Erskine Church became part of the United Presbyterian Church, which in 1900 joined the majority of the Free Church to form the United Free Church. The two United Free Church congregations united in 1919, when the Erskine Church was made available to the British Legion as a social centre. It was demolished in 1982 when the site was acquired by Kirk Care Housing Association for sheltered housing.
Ministers
Apart from Henry Erskine, himself an outstanding man to whose memory a monument was erected in 1825, Chirnside has been served by a long succession of faithful ministers, each bringing different qualities and skills to their work as pastor, preacher and leader within the community. Some have acquired a reputation beyond this parish and have rendered valuable service to the whole Church; others have been content to do what they could in and around Chirnside.
Our present Minister is the Rev. Celia Grace Kenny, who joined us in May of 2002, following the retirement of the Rev Bill Paterson. Sadly, Celia is leaving us on the 30th April having decided to retire from Parish Ministry.
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