The Full Story

History

History

Today Stranraer Parish Church is one congregation, formed from the union of the High Kirk and Trinity Church. This page gives a brief history of the Church of Scotland in Stranraer.

Christianity in Wigtownshire has a long history. It begins with St Ninian, the first great missionary to the South-West of Scotland, who was based at Whithorn in the early Fifth Century. From that small beginning the Church grew and spread throughout the county.

In the Fifteenth Century the Reformation came to the Scottish Church and Presbyterianism was established. At this time there was a chapel beside the Castle of St John, this has long gone. It was replaced by Stranraer Parish Church, still standing on Church Street.

The next notable period in the Church history of Wigtownshire came in the Seventeenth Century. A dispute arose between the King and the Church. The King wanted Scotland to change from presbyterian church government to episcopacy. The Covenanters stood against the King and many were martyred, including the two Mary’s at Wigtown and Richard Cameron the minister of New Luce. Many in Stranraer supported the Covenanters. With Presbyterianism re-established in Scotland the Church had a settled period till the Eighteenth Century.

Patronage was to bring much division within Stranraer Parish and across Scotland. When a new minister was to be appointed to a Parish Church, patronage meant the local laird or lairds, that is landowners, appointed the minister. Many opposed such patronage, they wanted the Church members to be allowed a say in the choice of new minister. This lead to a number of break away Churches; Secession Church, Relief Church and finally in the Disruption of 1843 when a large proportion of ministers and church members left to form the Free Church. Stranraer had more than one of each of these breakaway churches.

In early Nineteenth Century the Church of Scotland decided that the growing population of Stranraer required the formation of a new parish. A Chapel of Ease was established in the early century which later became Sheuchan Parish Church, today’s High Kirk.

In the 1850’s the Church of Scotland brought an end to patronage bringing about the beginning of denominational reunion in Scotland. The Secession Church united with the Relief Church in 1847 to form the United Presbyterian Church. Later this new Church united with the Free Church to form the United Free Church in 1900. The United Free Church returned to the Church of Scotland in 1929.

Stranraer Churches which have come together to today form Stranraer Parish Church are listed below.

High Kirk: a union of Sheuchan Church, St. Margarets Church (a former United Free Church which was previously Sheuchan Free Church).

Trinity Church: former names Ivy Place Church, St Andrew’s Church, Town Church.

Ivy Place was a Secession Church then United Presbyterian before becoming St. Andrew’s United Free Church and joining the Church of Scotland in 1929.

Other former United Free Churches joined Trinity over the years: St Mark’s Church (now the Gospel Hall, originally a Free Church) and St Ninian’s Church ( originally a Secession Church then United Presbyterian)

There was also an Original Secession Church ( now the Masonic Hall) which was dissolved in 1922, allowing its members join whichever alternative church they wished.