Kingshill Parish Church is a congregation of the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland (CoS; ; ) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While mem ...

in Skene, part of the Presbytery of North East and Northern Isles. The parish has two places of worship, Skene Church in Kirkton of Skene and Trinity Church in Westhill. The current minister is in vacancy.

Skene Church

The earliest record of a church in Skene dates from 1296, when one Patrick of Skene signed himself as the "Clericus of Skene". The medieval building stood by the Roman road which ran from

Normandykes Normandykes (Grid Reference: NO 830994) is the site of a Roman marching camp to the southwest of Peterculter, City of Aberdeen, Scotland. The near-rectangular site, measuring approximately , covers about of the summit and eastern slopes of a ...

to Donside. Records of the Skene

Kirk Session A session (from the Latin word ''sessio'', which means "to sit", as in sitting to deliberate or talk about something; sometimes called ''consistory'' or ''church board'') is a body of elected elders governing a particular church within presbyte ...

begin in 1676. A 17th-century building stood on the site of the present Skene Church. Skene Church was built in 1801, a plain rectangular building with the pulpit in the centre of the south wall. As this was one of the long walls, the congregation were spread to the left and right of the minister. A gallery ran round the other three walls, and there were doors in each of the end walls. In 1932, the interior was entirely refurnished and the sanctuary moved to the east wall, the door on that wall being blocked off. The gallery was replaced with a smaller one on the west wall. In accordance with the changes in thinking on Scottish church architecture, the communion table now took centre place, with the pulpit on the left. A

mortsafe A mortsafe or mortcage was a construction designed to protect graves from disturbance, used in the United Kingdom. Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom, Resurrectionists had supplied schools of anatomy since the early 18th century. This was due ...

outside the west door is an interesting historical object. After the

disruption of 1843 The Disruption of 1843, also known as the Great Disruption, was a schism in 1843 in which 450 evangelical ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. The main conflict was over whether the Church of Sc ...

, a Free Church was built near Kirkton. This congregation reunited with Skene parish in 1941. The old Free Church building was later used as a blacksmith's workshop. In 1872, the congregation also built a mission hall in Lyne of Skene, which it kept until 1970.

Trinity Church

Trinity Church at Westhill is an ecumenical project involving the Church of Scotland, the

Scottish Episcopal Church The Scottish Episcopal Church (; ) is a Christian denomination in Scotland. Scotland's third largest church, the Scottish Episcopal Church has 303 local congregations. It is also an Ecclesiastical province#Anglican Communion, ecclesiastical provi ...

and the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

; thus the dedication to the Trinity echos the three denominations in co-operation. This 1981 building was extended in 2003 and is a hall church with moveable chairs, allowing flexibility of use. The 2003 extension to the building added a second hall to the complex, making it possible for two denominations to have services simultaneously. The extension is predominantly used by the Sunday School during worship. Work has begun on constructing a new church to house the Scottish Episcopal congregation in Westhill.

References

*Bicentenary booklet ''A History of the Parish of Skene'', 2001 (introduction by Iain U. Thomson)

External links

Skene Parish Church WebsiteSkene ChurchSkene Heritage Society
{{coord, 57, 9, 33, N, 2, 19, 33, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Church of Scotland churches in Scotland Churches in Aberdeenshire Category B listed buildings in Aberdeenshire Listed churches in Scotland

Skene Church

Trinity Church

See also

References

External links