THE small town of Kilsyth lies under the Kilsyth hills, in the central rift valley of Lowland Scotland. For centuries it lay within the county of Stirling, but since 1996 has been in the local authority area of North Lanarkshire.

It was a small settlement until the late 19th century, when it became an important centre for coal-mining, an industry which lasted until the late 1960s.

Much of the coal mined in the district was used to make coke for consumption in the blast furnaces of Gartsherrie Iron Works in Coatbridge, to which the pits were linked by a network of mineral railways.

It is a place with a very distinct character, notably different from the communities of Cumbernauld, Coatbridge and Airdrie, its nearest neighbours. The parish church, the subject of this article, celebrated the bicentenary of its construction last year, and to mark the occasion a beautifully-illustrated history has been published, written by Bill Gracie, a 96-year-old member of the congregation, with support from Donald John Maclean, leader of the congregation’s Bicentenary Group. The rest of this article is based largely on this very attractive publication: The Old Lady of Backbrae 1816-2016, which Mr McLean kindly sent me.

According to the authors the first Reformed place of worship in the parish was built immediately after the Reformation in 1560 ‘probably the first church built in Scotland after that event.

It was named the Kirk of Monyabroch, and was situated in what is now Kilsyth cemetery.

The authors relate that by the end of the 18th century this building had become too small for the congregation, and that on March 3 1799 a fight broke out in the church for the last empty seat.

The minister, the Rev Robert Rennie duly approached the Heritors (the landowners responsible for church provision) about building a larger church.

In 1813 they agreed to build a new place of worship on a hill-top site – the Backbrae – to the east of the mansion-house.

The principal heritor, Sir Archibald Edmonstone, agreed not only to pay for his share of the basic cost of the building but also for a tower and clock. This was a time when there was a revolution in the provision of church buildings, to accommodate larger congregations, with the adoption of rectangularly-planned worship spaces, often with galleries, and pulpits on one end wall.

Such buildings, often termed ‘Heritors’ Gothic’ had recently been commissioned for the parishes of Old Kilpatrick and Erskine (now Bishopton). Sir Archibald instructed his solicitor to seek plans of these buildings, the latter specifically intended as a model for other churches in the area. The design of the Kilsyth building was entrusted to a Mr Shepherd ‘architect son of Mr Shepherd at Dalmuir’, who may have designed the Old Kilpatrick building, which has interesting parallels with the Kilsyth building.

The Kilsyth building cost £2,340 2s, and the tower £491 (including the cost of demolishing the old building), and it could accommodate more than 800 people. Because of its prominent situation and lofty pinnacled tower it was a notable landmark, and remains a significant feature in the town, despite the pinnacles having been reduced in height at some stage.

The congregation was renamed Kilsyth Old in 1929, at the union of the Church of Scotland with the United Free Church, At the same time the former Free church in Kilsyth was renamed Kilsyth Burns, after the parish minister, the Rev W Burns, who had left the Church of Scotland for the Free Church in 1843.

In 1975 these two congregations came together as Kilsyth Burns and Old Parish Church, worshipping in the 1816 building. This congregation is to be congratulated on more than two centuries in its present building, serving a place which still has a real sense of community, and in publishing such a handsome souvenir of its history.