John R Hume offers insights into the fascinating history of a church in a Highland town.

ROTHES is south of Elgin, in Moray, in the heart of the Scotch Malt Whisky country.

It is in a delightful upland area, surrounded by hills from which the water to make the whisky flows. Its sheltered site was recognised at the beginning of the settlement of the area by Norman Scots.

Peter de Polloc, ‘Lord of Rothayes’, built his castle there. The lordship later passed by a series of marriages to the Leslie family, one of whom was made Earl of Rothes in about 1457. The earliest settlement probably clustered round the base of the castle, and had a church dedicated to Our Lady of Grace in the 13th century. In about 1554 a new church was built on a new site, dedicated to St Laurence.

By the mid-18th century whisky distilling was underway in the area. The Laigh of Moray, the coastal plain north of Elgin was, as it still is, an excellent area for growing barley, but did not have the water needed for distilling. Whisky was a high-value product that could be sold in lowland markets, rather than barley as grain.

The area was sufficiently prosperous by the middle of the 18th century for the third Earl of Seafield, to replace the existing village by a planned settlement, laid out on either side of the Burn of Rothes. The 1554 church was demolished in 1780 and a new church built by the Seafield family between 1781 and 1784, appropriately in Seafield Square.

In the graveyard of the 1554 church is the fine tombstone of James Leslie, who appears to have been the first post-Reformation minister (‘persone’ or parson) of Rothes. Appointed in 1563, he died in 1576. The new building also replaced a church at Dundurcas, about three kilometers to the north-east. It had been rebuilt as recently as 1748-53, but was unroofed in 1782 (it is said to stop ‘an insane preacher’ from holding services for dissenters). Its ruin still survives.

The new church was built on a T-plan, typical for the period, with four roundheaded windows facing the square. The whisky industry prospered in the later 19th century, and with it what had become the town of Rothes, which was constituted a Police Burgh in 1884.

A clock tower, designed by A and W Reid, was added to the church in 1870, with the clock from Nairn Town Hall. The interior of the church was remodelled in 1876-77 by the Earl of Seafield’s estate architect, Alexander Smith of Cullen, and by Andrew Thomson of Keith

At the Disruption in 1843 the minister and a considerable congregation ‘came out’ and a church and manse were constructed in 1843-44. This church was replaced in 1858. Building of a new church in the High Street started in 1898. By the time it was opened in August 1900 the Free Church had united with the United Presbyterian Church, and the building was opened as Rothes United Free Church. It was designed by George Sutherland of Sutherland and Jamieson in Gothic Revival style.

The United Free Church amalgamated with the Church of Scotland in 1929, and the Rothes church became Rothes High. It was united with the parish church in March 1939, with the congregation worshipping in the latter. The High Church was retained and let to a cinema company, the congregation retaining use of a small hall at the rear. The building survives, but has been disused for some years.

The settlement is still dominated by the whisky industry. There are three maltwhisky distilleries in the town – Glen Grant, Glenrothes and Glen Spey – and a fourth, Speyburn, is about one kilometre to the north-east. The parish church, however, is still both physically and spiritually at its heart, a focal point for the community.