Balmerino Parish Church



Balmerino Parish Church is a Church of Scotland parish church in Bottomcraig, Fife, Scotland. The church sits in the centre of the small village where it was built in 1811. It is situated across the road from the accompanying manse constructed in 1816.

History
Before the construction of the church, numerous churches were used in the parish. The immediate predecessor was a church constructed in Kirkton around the beginning of the 17th century: according to one source in 1595 and in 1611 according to another. This church was used by the parishioners until the construction of the current church in 1811.

During the construction of the church, the parishioners attended the church in Kilmany where services were alternated weekly between the two ministers. Thomas Chalmers, minister of Kilmany, preached one week and Andrew Thompson, minister of Balmerino, preached the other.

Construction and original layout
The church was constructed in 1811 with a capacity of 400 people. The ground it was built on was then a moor. Larch trees were planted around it.

The original layout differed greatly from the present layout. The pulpit was built in the middle of the south wall. In front of the pulpit sat the communion table which spanned nearly the full length of the church. The gallery, the front of which was a half oval, spanned the full length of the church.

On the south wall of the church sat two doors: one on the east end and one on the west end. Above these doors were windows.

Opposite the two south doors were doors on the north wall, both of which led upstairs to the gallery. The gallery was lit by the windows above the south doors as well as two square-headed windows on each gable, on the east and west of the church.

A belfry was added above the church on the west side. The bell was operable from the path at this end of the church.

Opening
The church was opened on 17 November 1811 by Dr George Campbell, the minister of Cupar. The first Psalm sung in his service was Psalm 122. He proceeded to read Luke 8:18.

Construction of manse
In 1816 a manse was constructed to the west of the church on the other side of the road on what was then a gravel pit. The ground it was built on required soil to be carried from the former manse to the new one for its construction. The site was chosen by reverends Andrew Thomson and Thomas Chalmers.

Renovation
In 1883 and 1884, the architects C. & L. Ower renovated the church, changing the layout drastically.

The gallery was removed and replaced by one in the west end so that a new pulpit could be placed in the east end. The new pulpit, of "handsome design", was built with panels on each side containing text. Behind the pulpit, to each side, two new mosaic windows were built on the east wall.

On the platform in front of the pulpit a communion table, a font, and an extravagantly designed chair were placed. With the pulpit now on the east end opposite the entrance, the pews were each made to sit in rows perpendicular to the north and south walls facing eastwards. The pew area was made to extend from the west end to the communion table.

Two passages were added between the pews, leading from the entrance to the pulpit. The bell in the belfry, which was previously operable only from the outside, could now be rung from a chamber in the wall above the door at the entrance.

The square-headed window in the east gable was replaced with a round window made of "ornate tinted glass in geometrical patterns". The other windows were replaced with tinted cathedral glass with tracery added to the front ones on the west gable.

Construction of the vestry now present in the church was also started at this time when a session house was added to the north face of the church. In 1887 a hall with a capacity of 210 people was subsequently added to the north of the original vestry for use as a Sunday school.

In 1883, upon the church's reopening, the church's choir was formed.

Unification with Gauldry church
In 1937, the church merged with the church in nearby Gauldry which had, prior to this, belonged to the United Free Church of Scotland.

Services alternated weekly between the two churches until the Gauldry church's closure in 2019. Since then, services have been held solely at Balmerino.

Andrew Thomson
Andrew Thomson was the author of the first statistical account of Balmerino in the famous Statistical Account of Scotland, a work published by Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster documenting the parishes of Scotland in the 1790s.

John Thomson
John Thomson was the fifteenth minister of Balmerino, succeeding his father Andrew Thomson. John Thomson authored the second statistical account of Balmerino in the New Statistical Account of Scotland, an updated account published by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the period of 1834 to 1845. He served as minister for 33 years until his death on 22 May 1857 at the age of 61.

James A. Campbell
James A. Campbell succeeded John Thomson in 1857 as the sixteenth minister of Balmerino parish. Prior to this, he had served as chaplain to the Highland Brigade during the Crimean War.

Much of the history of Balmerino parish was collected in his 1867 book Balmerino And Its Abbey: A Parochial History. The book, which was updated with a newer edition published in 1899, is the most complete historical work to cover the parish's history.