Church Overview

‘To be causewayed with whinstone and paved with hewn flags. The lock on the front door to be of 20/- value and the rest to have snecks and wooden bolts’: this was the instruction given to the architect George Dempster of Greenock, for a new church to be built for the Gaelic-speaking congregation of the Campbeltown area to replace the Gaelic Church on Kirk Street. The building took five years to erect and was completed in 1808

Built with harled rubble and red sandstone dressings, the oblong kirk with rectangular stair towers at each end of the front, possesses three galleries inside. The planned belfry was not quite large enough for the heritors, so a steeple was built. It has been rebuilt twice since, the casualty of lightning strikes. The screen around the Allen Renaissance organ, installed in 2000, bears a memorial to the fallen of the Second World War.

Highland Parish Church was a Destination Hub on our St Columba Pilgrim Journey. Latterly its congregation formed a union with the congregations of Campbeltown Parish Church, Southend Church and Saddell & Carradale Parish Church, taking the name South Kintyre Parish Churches. As part of a nationwide programme of rationalisation of its church buildings, the difficult decision was taken by the local Church of Scotland Presbytery to close and sell Highland Parish Church, which was marketed for sale in 2024.

Closed by the Church of Scotland and marketed for sale in 2024

Disclaimer

The information about churches in Scotland’s Churches Scheme has been provided by the congregations or taken from the Historic Scotland list and published sources, in particular, the Buildings of Scotland volumes and the RIAS Illustrated Architectural Guides. To contact this specific church please complete the Contact this Church form above. The information is not authoritative; please contact Scotland’s Churches Trust to let us know of any errors or omissions.