My church

MY husband and I moved to the village of Duror, in north Argyll, in 2006, and Duror Church has been “my” church ever since.

Duror Church is a B-listed Telford church, completed in 1827 at a cost of £1450.

In 1982 the church was re-roofed, the floor repaired, and improvements made to the electric heating.

A rear extension was built in 2002, in the same style as the original church, to provide a meeting room/vestry, a toilet for the disabled, and a small kitchen.

Major roof repairs were undertaken in 2016. It is a simple and beautiful building, well cared for by successive Kirk Sessions and other volunteers.

But a church is not just a building, however beautiful. It’s a congregation.

From the first time my husband and I set foot in it, we were made welcome. From the greeting at the door, to the friendly people in the pews, it was, as I’ve said to many people, like being wrapped in a warm blanket. It still feels like that.

When my husband died suddenly, two months after we moved here, I was supported by new friends and neighbours in an easy and unobtrusive way.

In 2009 I became congregational treasurer, and still hold that post.

The Duror congregation has always been very involved in the community – and vice versa. Our informal, friendly, ecumenical and flourishing Guild runs monthly coffee mornings in aid of Guild Projects, which are regularly attended by people from Duror and from neighbouring villages.

“From the first time my husband and I set foot in it, we were made welcome. From the greeting at the door, to the friendly people in the pews, it was, as I’ve said to many people, like being wrapped in a warm blanket. It still feels like that.”

During every winter the congregation funds soup-and-sandwich lunches, also enjoyed by people across the community, of any denomination or none. Equally, regardless of whether they have any religious affiliation or not, members of the wider community are happy to help us with large projects such as our First World War exhibition in 2018, or our Flower Festival a few years before that.

In common with many other congregations, as the years have passed we have become older and fewer. Sadly, there have been no children in the congregation, and therefore no Sunday School, for several years.

In 2023 the Duror congregation began a new adventure, when the three parishes of Duror, Nether Lochaber, and Glencoe St Munda’s united to become South Lochaber Church. In 2024, our union has expanded to include Kinlochleven Church, with which we were linked previously.

South Lochaber currently has four church buildings and two manses, although, at the time of writing, one of each is on the market.

In all four communities, we are still settling into new patterns and places of worship, and learning to think of ourselves as one larger family.

With Sunday services now shared around all four former parishes, the Duror church building hosts services on only two Sundays per month – but remains the friendly, inclusive and nurturing space it has always been.