The former Castlehill Church was sold to the Forres Parish Church of St Laurence and became its church halls. After a protracted period of refurbishment, it was eventually opened and dedicated on September 5, 1976.

The history of Castlehill Church began in 1733, when the First (or original) Secession saw members leave the Established Church as a protest against the system of Patronage, by which a minister was appointed to a congregation on presentation by a landowner.

The congregation was founded in 1768, when a group in Forres joined the Secession Movement. The first church was built at the north end of Batchen Street. It had various names over its history, namely United Secession, United Presbyterian and United Free.

The foundation stone of the Castlehill Church was laid on September 22, 1870, and it was opened and dedicated on November 26, 1871. The building costs were £3,000! In 1900, the United Presbyterian and the Free Churches united to form the United Free Church of Scotland. This meant that there were two U.F. Churches in Forres, and each had to take a distinctive name. It was at that point that it was named Castlehill, from the site on which it stood, and the other became the High Church.

In 1902 the Town Council presented the freedom of the burgh to Lord Strathcona in Castlehill Church. In 1903 James MacDougall Black became the minister and remained until 1907. Dr Black was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for the year 1938/1939.

Sadly, two outbreaks of dry-rot, one in 1902 and the second in 1946, meant that extensive and expensive work was necessary, and this was paid for by the congregation and by generous donations from Lord and Lady Strathcona and Andrew Carnegie.

Dry-rot, sadly, is very difficult to eradicate, and the building is now beyond the economic repair of the congregation of the Parish Church of St Laurence and has been sold. The date of transfer is Friday, June 30, 2006, exactly 34 years after the building was closed as a church!

We leave it with a great degree of sadness, but also with a great appreciation of its life and witness to the glory and worship of God over the last 135 years, and also that of the Christian witness of the congregations of the Castlehill building and that of Batchen Street over a total of 238 years.

Rev Barry J Boyd, Minister of the Forres Parish Church of St Laurence

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