Hopes have emerged that St Fergus Church in Wick can be “developed as a community asset” after it closes as a place of worship at the end of the year.
The final service in the former Wick Old Parish Church will take place on Sunday, December 29. Two days later, on New Year’s Eve, it will close its doors as a church after 194 years of continuous use, having been built in 1830.
A statement issued on behalf of the congregation acknowledged that the last service will be “a poignant and emotional moment”. Churches in Watten and Dunbeath are also closing.
The St Fergus congregation will move to Pulteneytown Parish Church as part of the newly named East Caithness Church of Scotland.
A Church of Scotland spokesman confirmed that there is community interest in the St Fergus Church building.
He said: “Three church buildings will close as places of worship in Caithness over the last few weeks of this year. With falling numbers of worshippers, and expensive to maintain and run old church buildings, together with a shortage of ordained ministers, hard decisions have had to be made.
“A recent vote of the congregations affected was overwhelmingly in favour of the changes.
“Many people, while appreciating change was inevitable, are saddened at the loss of their place of worship, but the union is giving all the faithful an opportunity to review the old ways of doing things and find a new way of sharing our faith with our wider community.”
Lybster Church and Pulteneytown Parish Church will remain open as places of worship. Their names will be replaced with East Caithness Church of Scotland.
“Dunbeath, Watten and Wick St Fergus churches will be closing as places of worship,” the spokesman said.
“Thrumster Church, which was part of Pulteneytown Parish Parish, and which closed some time ago, is now being converted into a house. There is already interest in both Watten and Wick St Fergus church buildings with the possibility that the latter will be developed as a community asset.
“In the long term, the intention is for a team ministry covering East Caithness, from Thurso to Dunbeath, eventually including the parishes of Pentland and Thurso St Peter’s and St Andrew’s.
“The times of one minister/one church have gone, and there will be a team of ministers serving East Caithness Church of Scotland.
“Active members of each former congregation have diverse skills and bringing those to the union will result in a stronger church.”
St Fergus treasurer Alan Sinclair said: “It is the wish of the congregation of St Fergus that the building be taken over by the local community after it ceases to become a place of worship at the end of the year.
“We have therefore asked the Church of Scotland general trustees to look favourably on any local group that has a viable plan for the ongoing use of this iconic building in Wick.”
A recent Facebook post from St Fergus stated: “Although the church is closing as a place of worship we can be optimistic it will continue to be used to benefit our community.”
A family service is planned for Christmas Eve at 6.30pm and the last service at St Fergus will be on the 29th at 11.30am.
Meanwhile, St Fergus will host an evening of Christmas carols and music conducted by Susie Dingle this Thursday at 7.30pm. It will feature Wick Choral Society with the Caithness Orchestra and choirs from Newton Park and Noss primary schools.
The closure of St Fergus as a place of worship was put forward as part of a wider programme arising from the high maintenance costs of church buildings and fewer people attending.
An online petition was launched in May calling for the decision to be rescinded. It described St Fergus as “an essential community hub” as well as the spiritual home of the congregation.
As of this week, the petition on Change.org had 169 verified signatures.
The St Fergus congregation issued a brief history of the church, describing its closure as a place of worship on December 31 as “the end of an era”.
In 1794 the previous church on the site was described as a “very old, long, dark and ill-constructed building, perhaps the worst in Caithness” and it was condemned in 1816 because of serious subsidence. The decision was taken to begin the process of constructing the building that exists today.
Work on the foundations for the present building began in 1822 but almost immediately the contractor stopped building operations due to the presence of sand. This was eventually resolved by boring 22 feet through the sand down to solid bedrock.
The new church was given the local nickname of the Muckle or Beeg Kirk and opened for worship in 1830. The building at the time was described as a “spacious structure of blue stone and dressings of freestone, in the early English style of architecture, with a spire”.
It is said to have the largest unsupported roof span of any church in Scotland. The final cost of the building was £4780 10s 10d.
At that time and up to 1929 the congregation’s name was the Parish Church. It was renamed to Wick North Parish Church, before becoming Wick Old Parish Church from 1931 to 2009.
In 2009 the former Bridge Street Church of Scotland and Wick Old Parish Church congregations united to form the existing Wick St Fergus Church of Scotland.
In 1993/94 the then Wick Old congregation embarked on major alterations to the interior. Other Caithness churches have since undertaken similar refurbishments.
The alterations created an upstairs sanctuary and modern spacious halls and rooms on the ground floor, used by several community groups and youth organisations.
The St Fergus sanctuary is one of the largest in Caithness. It has been used over the years for Remembrance Sunday services, concerts, graduation ceremonies and funerals, while in 2022 it was the setting for the service of remembrance in Caithness for the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Since 2018 the Church of Scotland has been implementing a “Radical Action Plan” for church reform throughout the country, reducing the number of ministerial charges and buildings.
In early 2024 the Highlands and Islands presbytery took over from the former Caithness presbytery and a new presbytery plan was created for the whole Highlands and Islands.
This resulted in the uniting of the congregations of St Fergus, Pulteneytown and Thrumster, Latheron and Watten to form a new East Caithness hub.
Under the new plan the retained buildings will be Pulteneytown and Lybster churches, with St Fergus, Watten and Dunbeath churches closing by the end of 2024.
The church’s first minister was the Rev Charles Thomson and the last minister of St Fergus was the Rev John Nugent.
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