HRH The Princess Royal became the patron of Scotland’s Churches Scheme, one of our two parent charities, in 2003, taking up the role previously occupied by Her Late Majesty the Queen Mother, who had been the Patron of the Scheme since 1995.

In addition to joining us at our biennial “Gathering” events, to meet representatives of our member churches and the “Friends” of our Trust, she has also very kindly provided the prefaces to several of our regional church guides and she meets with the chair of our trustees from time to time to discuss our work and the current goings-on within Scotland’s ecclesiastical built heritage.

We are grateful to Her Royal Highness for her continuing support and commitment to our Trust and our various activities safeguarding, championing and promoting Scotland’s magnificent ecclesiastical built heritage.

 

Robin is a former Lord Lyon King of Arms of Scotland (2001-2008) and is a retired solicitor, having been a senior partner with Dundas & Wilson and then Turcan Connell. From 1988 to 2001 he also held the role of the Purse Bearer to the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He remains a member of the Royal Company of Archers (the King’s Bodyguard in Scotland).

He became involved with Scotland’s Churches Scheme in its early days and became chair of its trustees in 1996. He was still chair at the time of the Scheme’s merger with the Scottish Architectural Heritage Trust in 2012, forming Scotland’s Churches Trust, becoming the chairperson of the new combined entity, in which role he remained until 2015.  

In 2017, following the death of Lady Marion Fraser, Robin became our Honorary President, in which role he chairs our Annual General Meetings.

Andrew is Professor Emeritus of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Edinburgh. He is also an Honorary Professor of the St Andrews University Medical School. 

A graduate of Glasgow University, he undertook a Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford before returning to Glasgow, where he became a Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in the Royal Infirmary. He moved to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in 1986 and would become the founding Director of the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory and the Tommy’s Centre for Pregnancy Research in the Queen’s Medical Research Institute in the city.

He retired from his clinical and academic appointments in 2009. He is a former chair of the Academy of Royal Colleges and Faculties in Scotland and of Tenovus Scotland, a charity that raises funds to support young and early-stage researchers working in medical science.

Andrew first got involved with Scotland’s Churches Trust as trustee in 2012, quickly becoming chair of our Communications Committee. He served as chair of our trustees from 2015 to 2019 and he became an Honorary Vice-President in May 2020.

John is an architectural and business historian, author, photographer and artist. He spent twenty years at the University of Strathclyde lecturing on economic and industrial history, before taking up the role of Principal Inspector of Ancient Monuments, and later Historic Buildings at Historic Scotland. He was Chief Inspector of Historic Buildings there until his retirement in 1999, when he became Chairperson of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, a post he held until 2015, when the Commission merged with Historic Scotland, becoming Historic Environment Scotland.

He holds honorary professorships from the University of Glasgow and the University of St Andrews, has authored multiple articles, books and other publications about Scotland’s industrial and ecclesiastical built heritage. He donated his collection of over 40,000 photographs of Scottish buildings to HES Archives and has created the many hundreds of wonderful line drawings of church buildings that he kindly allowed us to use in our guide books and on member church pages on this site.

He has been heavily involved with the activities of SCT and of both of our parent charities for decades and became an Honorary Vice-President of our Trust in 2022.

Peter grew up in Kirkcaldy and attended Fettes College in Edinburgh. An Army Scholar, he was commissioned into the Black Watch regiment via a Divinity Degree at St Andrew’s University. He was a Platoon Commander in Berlin and Northern Ireland before becoming Operations Officer in Hong Kong, where he was an ordained elder in St Barbara’s Church Stanley Fort, before returning to Scotland as Adjutant of the 1/51 Highland Regiment in Perth.

After leaving the Army, he moved into education. Following spells as the chaplain of Loretto School in Musselburgh, then the Perse School in Cambridge and finally Gordonstoun School in Moray, he became Headmaster of Ardvreck School in Crieff.

He was ordained and inducted as the full-time Minister of the Word and Sacrament of the Parish Church of St Cuthbert in Edinburgh in 2017. During his time at this historic church he was also chaplain to the McCraes Battalion Trust and the Convenery of Edinburgh Trades. In 2025, he was called  to be Associate Pastor (Education and Congregational Life) of the historic First (Scots) Presbyterian Church in  Charleston, South Carolina.

Peter became an Honorary Vice President of our Trust in 2025.

Adam has over 40 years’ experience across the energetics field. Following his degrees from the University of Edinburgh, he worked for the MOD for many years, where he oversaw the technical content of the UK energetics research programme, gaining international recognition as a Subject Matter Expert in Energetic Systems and their application. He has authored many works and edited several academic books in his field and in 2013 he was given an Honorary Professorship by the University of Edinburgh’s School of Chemistry.

He has had a life-long interest in church architecture and history and this led him to become a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland as well as taking on memberships of other related heritage organisations. He has lectured on Scottish church architecture to the National Trust for Scotland amongst others.  

Adam was initially a Friend of Scotland’s Churches Trust and a regular volunteer, before joining our board of trustees in 2019. He became its chairperson in October 2022. He also chairs our Outreach and Events Sub-Committee

Russell grew up in Ayrshire in a medical family but spent the whole of his legal career in Edinburgh specialising in Rural Property and Landed Estates, formerly with Dundas & Wilson CS and latterly at Turcan Connell. He took early retirement in 2020 to pursue other interests including being ordained as a non-stipendiary priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. He presently serves as an Associate Priest at St Michael and All Saints, a dynamic Anglo-Catholic church in central Edinburgh.  

He sits on the Canons Committee; is studying at New College (Edinburgh University) for a MDiv; is the Honorary Secretary of The Edinburgh Society of Organists and a member of EDFAS and AHSS.  He has recently been appointed as the Honorary Chaplain of The Royal Company of Merchants of the City of Edinburgh. 

Russell joined our board of Trustees in 2025 and is a member of our Finance Sub-Committee.

Jamie grew up in rural Aberdeenshire before embarking upon a career in the army, gaining a commission in the Black Watch in 1976. He retired from the Regular Army in 2006, but went on to become the Deputy Commandant and then Commandant of the Black Watch Battalion Army Cadet Force, before being appointed its Honorary Colonel in 2022.

Jamie has been involved with Scotland’s Churches Trust since 2014 in a variety of roles and served as the chair of our trustees from 2019-2022. He is currently chair of our Finance Sub-Committee and our Hon Treasurer.

Andrew is Director of Music at Glasgow Cathedral and has a well-earned reputation as an innovative Scottish organist with his imaginative performances of favourite masterpieces and his frequent collaborations with contemporary composers.  

Appointed at Glasgow Cathedral aged 21, Andrew is a First Prize winner of the Northern Ireland International Organ Competition, a shortlisted finalist at St Albans International Organ Competition, an Associate of the Royal College of Organists, and winner of the RCS Prize for Early Music.

In addition to his duties at Glasgow Cathedral, Andrew enjoys a varied career across many keyboard instruments, mixing solo concerts with chamber and orchestral performances. He is also one of the principal drivers behind the Sowne of Organe project, surveying Scotland’s most significant (and endangered) historical organs. 

Andrew joined as a trustee in 2023 and is currently in the process of reforming our Organ Sub-Committee.

Elizabeth was Lyon Clerk and Keeper of the Records from 1986 to 2018. She was created Linlithgow Pursuivant Extraordinary in 1987, becoming the first woman in the world to hold heraldic office. She was Carrick Pursuivant from 1992 to 2010 and Snawdoun Herald from 2010 to 2021. She was Assistant Secretary of the Order of the Thistle from 2008 to 2014 since when she has been Secretary of the Order.

She is currently President of the Academie Internationale d’Héraldique, Fellow of various heraldic and academic societies, including the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Vice President of the Heraldry Society of Scotland, and a Trustee of various charitable organisations. She held the office of Lord Dean of Guild of the Merchant of Guildry of Stirling from 2019 to 2025.

She is also Vestry Secretary and Lay Representative of St Mary’s Episcopal Church, Aberfoyle and Diocesan Secretary for the Diocese of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane and sits on the Administration Board for the Diocese.

Elizabeth became a Trustee of Scotland’s Churches Trust in 2025

Jeff works for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland as the Head of the Outreach. As a consequence he spends a lot of time explaining what an antiquarian is!

He has extensive experience of complex, multi-personnel projects with a focus on heritage research and promotion, focusing heavily on all aspects of getting people involved with Scotland’s heritage in innovative and, most importantly, fun ways.

Jeff joined our trustees in 2023 and is a member of our Outreach and Events Sub-Committee

Caroline joined the Edinburgh New Town Conservation Committee in 1979.   ENTCC later became Edinburgh World Heritage, formed after Edinburgh’s Old and New Towns were inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1995. The new body continued to offer grants for the conservation of historic buildings within the World Heritage Site, monitor conservation standards and developed a new role in raising awareness of the significance of the Site through education and interpretation.

As Company Secretary, Caroline worked directly with the trustees and the requirements of charity governance until 2016. Since retiring she became a trustee of the Edinburgh Decorative & Fine Arts Society (EDFAS).

Caroline joined our board of trustees in 2022 and is a member of our Church Maintenance Sub-committee. 

Lizzie’s academic research focusses on high and late medieval Scotland, and explores a variety of media related to the pre-Reformation church, including architecture, sculpture, furnishings, tombs, paintings, music, and liturgical performances. 

Lizzie is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Art History at the University of Edinburgh. She is working on a scholarly reappraisal of that most infamous of Scottish churches, Rosslyn Chapel. She studied for her PhD on Scotland’s 49 pre-Reformation collegiate churches in St Andrews. She has published on Scottish late medieval churches and their afterlives in popular culture, and speaks widely about their importance.

She joined our trustees in 2023 and is a member of our Outreach and Events Sub-Committee.

 

Ros has been a practicing architect for over 20 years and is a partner in Tod & Taylor Architects, which specialises in alterations and extensions to existing buildings throughout Scotland.

Being conservation accredited by the RIAS to the highest level, she has worked on many Grade A Listed buildings and finds repairs to historic buildings particularly rewarding. As climate change increases its impacts on the planet, Ros is passionate about the need to both adapt and preserve our building stock, to reduce our carbon footprints and make our church and other buildings much more resilient and sustainable for the future.

Ros first became involved with Scotland’s Churches Trust in 2017 as a member of our Church Grants Sub-Committee. She became a trustee in 2019 and took up the role of chair of the Church Maintenance Sub-committee that same year.

DJ is a heritage professional with academic research specialisms in the dislocation and domicide experienced by communities in post-war Edinburgh and the archaeological and historic landscape of the south-west Scottish Highlands.

His life-long passion for Scotland’s built heritage developed during his early years growing-up in the Scottish Highlands and on the island of Islay and was further strengthened during his university studies in Glasgow and Edinburgh. This abiding love of Scotland’s history and heritage has influenced many aspects of his career since, including his time spent as an historical consultant, in local and national politics, as a community activist, and in the service sector, where he spent many years managing some of Scotland’s best-known hostelries.

He joined Scotland’s Churches Trust as Director in 2022.

Graeme has spent his career as an IT consultant and office administrator in the charity sector. He has worked for the Trust since 2018.

He has always had a love for Scotland’s rich heritage of castles, churches and graveyards. Many of his social media posts are taken from clippings collected in a scrapbook he started when he was 13.

Jess is a recent graduate from the University of Glasgow, where she obtained a master’s degree in Global Health and an undergraduate degree in Sociology. Back home in East Lothian, she is an active community volunteer with a keen interest in cultural heritage and social history.

In addition to working with Scotland’s Churches Trust, she is also currently supporting the establishment of the “Friends of Preston Tower”, a fledgling community group that has recently partnered with the National Trust for Scotland and the local authority to take on the running of a medieval tower house in the heart of Prestonpans.