Skene Parish Church is a congregation of the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland. The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Reformation of 1560, when it split from the Catholic Church ...

Skene Skene may refer to: * Skene, Aberdeenshire, a community in North East Scotland, United Kingdom * Skene, Mississippi, an unincorporated community in Mississippi, United States * Skene, Sweden, a village now part of Kinna, Sweden * Skene (automobi ...

, part of the Presbytery of Gordon. The parish has two places of worship, Skene Church in Kirkton of Skene and Trinity Church in Westhill. The current minister is Rev. Stella Campbell.

Skene Church

The earliest record of a church in Skene dates from 1296, when one Patrick of Skene signed himself as the "Clericus of Skene". The medieval building stood by the Roman road which ran from

Normandykes Normandykes (Grid Reference: NO 830994) is the site of a Roman marching camp to the southwest of Peterculter, City of Aberdeen, Scotland. The near-rectangular site, measuring approximately , covers about of the summit and eastern slopes of a hil ...

to Donside. Records of the Skene

Kirk Session A session (from the Latin word ''sessio'', which means "to sit", as in sitting to deliberate or talk about something; sometimes called ''consistory'' or ''church board'') is a body of elected elders governing each local church within presbyterian ...

begin in 1676. A 17th-century building stood on the site of the present Skene Church. Skene Church was built in 1801, a plain rectangular building with the pulpit in the centre of the south wall. As this was one of the long walls, the congregation were spread to the left and right of the minister. A gallery ran round the other three walls, and there were doors in each of the end walls. In 1932, the interior was entirely refurnished and the sanctuary moved to the east wall, the door on that wall being blocked off. The gallery was replaced with a smaller one on the west wall. In accordance with the changes in thinking on Scottish church architecture, the communion table now took centre place, with the pulpit on the left. A

mortsafe A mortsafe or mortcage was a construction designed to protect graves from disturbance and used in the United Kingdom. Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom, Resurrectionists and Night Doctors had supplied schools of anatomy since the early 18th c ...

outside the west door is an interesting historical object. After the

disruption of 1843 The Disruption of 1843, also known as the Great Disruption, was a schism in 1843 in which 450 evangelical ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. The main conflict was over whether the Church of S ...

, a Free Church was built near Kirkton. This congregation reunited with Skene parish in 1941. The old Free Church building was later used as a blacksmith's workshop. In 1872, the congregation also built a mission hall in Lyne of Skene, which it kept until 1970.

Trinity Church

Trinity Church at Westhill is an ecumenical project involving the Church of Scotland, the

Scottish Episcopal Church The Scottish Episcopal Church ( gd, Eaglais Easbaigeach na h-Alba; sco, Scots Episcopal(ian) Kirk) is the ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in Scotland. A continuation of the Church of Scotland as intended by King James VI, and ...

and the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

; thus the dedication to the Trinity echos the three denominations in co-operation. This 1981 building was extended in 2003 and is a hall church with moveable chairs, allowing flexibility of use. The 2003 extension to the building added a second hall to the complex, making it possible for two denominations to have services simultaneously. The extension is predominantly used by the Sunday School during worship. Work has begun on constructing a new church to house the Scottish Episcopal congregation in Westhill.

References

*Bicentenary booklet ''A History of the Parish of Skene'', 2001 (introduction by Iain U. Thomson)

External links

Skene Parish Church WebsiteSkene ChurchSkene Heritage Society
{{coord, 57, 9, 33, N, 2, 19, 33, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Church of Scotland churches in Scotland Churches in Aberdeenshire Category B listed buildings in Aberdeenshire Listed churches in Scotland

Skene Church

Trinity Church

See also

References

External links