Ruined kirk of Rait

“The ruined kirk of Rait started as a chapel of Scone Abbey in the mid 1300s and became Rait parish church in 1491,” writes Donald Abbott of Invergowrie. “By 1769, there is a record in the minutes of Kilspindie & Rait parish church referring to a house and yard at Rait, belonging to the minister at Kilspindie.

“There are payment records from Fingask estate for the rental of the glebe at Rait. After the Disruption of 1843, the Rev Dr Moody Stuart of Annat, a Free Kirk minister serving in Edinburgh, had provided a cottage in Rait village for Free Church use and services were provided periodically there by such Free Kirk ministers as Professor Bannerman of Abernyte, Dr Grierson of Errol, Dr Andrew Bonar of Collace and Rev William Burns of St Peter’s Dundee.

“Early in the 20th Century, the Rev J.M. Strachan, minister of the joint charge of Kilspindie and Rait Church of Scotland at Kilspindie, periodically held services in the kirkyard of Rait.

“In 1774, the Methodist minister John Wesley on one of his many tours of Britain, stated that:

of the lovely valley called the Carse of Gowrie.’

“Rait kirk has recorded uses as a civil meeting place and its roof was claimed to have been set alight by soldiery of the Cromwellian General George Monck.

“It is very much a ruin today but my great grandfather, Thomas Macdonald, is buried in the lee of its eastern gable which still stands proudly as a reminder of this once fine church.”