Kincraig's historic church is set to close
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The Church of Scotland is to close its Insh Kirk at Kincraig.
After months of speculation, members of the congregation heard the news officially with the publication of the winter edition of ‘Crosscurrents’, the Alvie and Insh Parish Magazine.
“The Church of Scotland is in the process of a massive reorganisation,” explained local minister Rev Charles Finnie. “This is because of three factors affecting the church in these days.
“There is some loss of attendance on Sundays, there is loss of income and there is a drop in the number of people putting themselves for the ministry.”
During the second half of 2022 the general trustees of the Church of Scotland and the Presbytery Mission Planning Implementation Group made the decision to close the building.
“The Kirk Session objected to the process whereby we were told,” Mr Finnie explained. “We were informed in October that this decision would not change.
“The Insh building will be closed as a CofS church by the end of December 2025.”
Until then the congregation will still use it for worship, for weddings and funerals and it will remain open during the day for people to visit and enjoy the peace which the building has offered for centuries.
Insh Parish Church is dedicated to St Adamnan (c625-704), St Columba’s biographer, and is built on the site of an earlier chapel on a wooded knoll, Tom Eunan or Adamnan’s Mound.
Before Christianity came the glacial hillock was believed to be sacred to the Druids. It has been a place of Christian worship since the Seventh Century
The current building, beloved by tourists and photographers, has its origin in the 1700s. The present building dates from 1792 with some renovations from 1912 and 1963.
Within the building is an ancient cast-bronze bell which dates from the time of Adamnan and a stone basin which may have been the font from the earliest church.
The bell was believed to have healing or magical powers. It was once taken to Perth but the bell tolled ‘Tom Eodhnain’ over and over until it finally broke free and flew home. Thereafter it spent some time chained beside a window.
Adamnan came to Scotland from Ireland as a monk, ultimately becoming the 9th Abbot of Iona.
A man of rare scholarship for his time, he wrote the first biography of Columba, the original founder of the Abbey and credited with establishing Christianity in northern Scotland.
Several of the churches in Badenoch believe their roots could date all the way back to Columba and his first disciples in the Sixth Century.
