BUYERS have been moving to secure a slice of Scottish heritage after a surge in the number of historic churches being put up for sale by the Kirk.
Bargain hunters have been looking at properties ranging from £20,000 for an island church to £500,000 for a city-centre site in the Edinburgh complete with original features including stained glass windows and oak panelling.
The number of properties offered is three times the total sold or let in the last round of sales reported by the General Trustees in May, although a small number of those put on sale last year are understood to remain under negotiation.
The Church of Scotland's website last week had 77 properties for sale, including churches, halls, manses and plots. When the asking prices are totalled they are worth well beyond £10 million.
Monies raised from the sales, with many already under offer, are reserved for the congregations.
The landmark St Stephen's Church in Edinburgh is said to be under offer after being put on the market for over £500,000 while the A-listed Plockton Church, designed by Thomas Telford, is priced at offers over £90,000.
Other examples include Inverleith Church in Edinburgh (offers over £475,000, but already under offer), the B-listed Castlemilk West Church and Hall in Glasgow (offers invited) and the single-storey C-Listed Sellafirth Church in Yell, Shetland (offers in the region of £20,000).
The Kirk is selling surplus properties where in some cases congregations have merged as it is addressing changing needs of the local communities it serves while maintaining its key tenet of providing ministry in all parishes.
Last week the latest census figures showed the number of people in Scotland with no religion now outstrips those in the biggest denomination, the Church of Scotland.
The properties can often offer redevelopment opportunities subject to planning consents.
One heritage expert said that while converting churches can be challenging "the potential to re-use church buildings in imaginative and creative ways is endless".
Religious buildings currently represent approximately 12% of properties on the Buildings at Risk Register.
John Pelan, director of the The Scottish Civic Trust, said: "It is a fact of modern life that an in increasing number of church buildings are no longer viable as places of worship given the decline in congregations.
"Although redundancy is commonplace there are many example of creative adaptation and re-use.
"Church buildings, although challenging to convert, are often valuable in ways that make them attractive to developers and communities with vision."
Mr Pelan cited the Barony Centre in East Kilbride as an "excellent" recent example. He added: "They are often important historically and culturally with many unique architectural details."
A spokesman for the Church said: "The church is spiritual home of many living within the area it serves and, even to those of no faith, the church can still be involved in their lives. Buildings are used for a number of different purposes and used by many different organisations."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article