St Andrews Scottish Episcopal Church history

By 1860 this building, with a maximum capacity of 220, was outgrown.

The building was originally lighted by a massive chandelier presented by the Earl Fife, the stained glass widow depicting the Transfiguration was installed in 1865, given by Mrs Andrew Morison of Inverkeithny, in memory of her late husband, as is the window depicting St Andrew with his cross.

William Croswell Doane, elected the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany upon its 1868 creation, saw the potential for growth of the church in places it had not previously been.

The present site of St Andrew’s church, in Queen’s Terrace, was acquired, and the new building there was consecrated in 1869.

An organ to replace the model of 1759 was purchased in 1871 at a cost of £211.

In 1877 Episcopalians in the area began to hold services in Tain Town Hall.

A year later “an iron church, calculated for 70 people,” was built “at a cost of £179 – 18 – 00”. It opened on September 17th, 1878.

In both cases there were workmen who had been laying drains in 1884 and claimed to have found vaulted passages, and even underground stairways, and the leader of the “howkers” said “the ball is at our feet’, But nothing was discovered and the howkers dehowked.

In 1895 a member of its congregation, TT Oliphant, observed that the poor had great difficulty in obtaining seats at the morning service because of a shortage of room and the custom of pew renting.

A new chapel was built for $10,000 ($311,000 in modern dollars) in 1897 on Western Avenue near North Main, the same space occupied by the rectory today.

The Rectory, which adjoins the church, was built in 1898 to a design by Alexander Ross.

Two years later, in 1899, the chapel petitioned the diocese to separate itself from its parent church, since its congregation was increasingly composed of residents of the area who had no historical connection to the founding church.

Some time afterwards, the 1900 house that served as the church's rectory was purchased.

The chancel of the new church was enlarged in 1901.

An additional church was clearly necessary, and following the death of TT Oliphant in 1902 it was proposed that part of the new church should be a memorial to him.

A temporary iron church from Spiers of Glasgow was consecrated in May 1903, and provided free seating for a congregation of 150.

The foundation stone for the chancel was laid on Monday 11 March 1907 and the completed chancel was consecrated on Saturday 2 November 1907.

Architect Norman Sturgis designed the church to reflect the values of his mentor, Ralph Adams Cram, for whom he had worked as a draftsman after graduating from Harvard University's School of Architecture in 1913.

In 1919 the organ was removed to the Chancel in memory of those who fell in the Great War.

The foundation stone was laid for the new nave in June 1920.

He studied at Edinburgh College of Art, before opening his stained-glass studio in Edinburgh in 1937.

The rectory, ready in 1939, was the last building to be completed.

A second mission dedicated to St James was established in 1946 by the Revd G.M. Chaplin in Market Street.

Despite difficulties raised by World War II, the mortgage was finally paid off and burned in 1947.

St James closed in 1957 when St Andrew’s, which was then heavily in debt, was linked with St John’s, Portsoy under the Revd (later Canon) Douglas Grant; the need to provide services at both Banff and Portsoy precluded the provision of services at Macduff.

Statistical Account of Banffshire (1961) pp 146 – 159

The list of former clergy at Banff provided in the Scottish Episcopal Church Yearbook of 1967 indicates that the Revd Alexander Murray came to Banff in 1723 and demitted office in 1752.

Nine years later, in 1970, the church bought and installed a new organ.

A Rectory (sold in 1971) in the Elizabethan style was added.

In 1979 a thrift shop, The Shop at St Andrew's, was opened.

The nave altar was designed and carved from American oak in 1995 by Peter Bailey, a retired architect who lives on the Isle of Skye.

Since 1998 St Andrew’s shares its priest the Revd Canon Jeremy Paisey with All Saints, Buckie and St John’s in Portsoy.