The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
War’s devastating impact on Church of Scotland revealed
Wartime ledger shows church buildings were in the front line during bombing raids
A wartime ledger has revealed around 800 Church of Scotland buildings were damaged in the Second World War, as an expert said the Kirk was “in the front line” during bombing raids.
The Register of War Damaged Properties records every incident that befell churches, manses and halls across the country including scores across Tayside and Fife.
The document sets out the date, the extent of damage caused and the cost of repairs to hundreds of properties.
Preserved for decades in the Kirk’s offices in Edinburgh, the ledger will soon be handed to the National Archives of Scotland to enable historians to pore over it for the first time.
Dr Jeremy Crang, a senior lecturer at Edinburgh University, said the register shows the Kirk was “very much in the front line” and provided an “insight into the great challenges and trauma” members faced.
The Rev Bill Hogg, convener of the Church of Scotland’s committee on church art and architecture, added: “Damaged churches must have been quite devastating for communities because they are regarded as places of stability and continuity. What this register represents is the attempt the Church was making to keep things going.”
A total of 89 cities and towns were bombed across Scotland during the war and official figures estimate 2,298 people were killed, and 5,725 injured.
Most casualties occurred during the two-night Clydebank Blitz in March 1941 which claimed the lives of 528 people and left 617 severely injured.
The ledger shows damage to Auchtertool Church near Kirkcaldy over that period.
Churches in the East Neuk were also hit including those in Pittenweem, Cellardyke, Boarhills and Kilrenny.
In Dundee, Baxter Park Church suffered damage, as did Orwell Church in Perth and St Ninian’s in Arbroath.
Bearsden South Church near Glasgow, now known as Bearsden Cross Church, was rebuilt after being hit by an incendiary bomb dropped by a plane returning from the Clydebank raid.
Audrey Taylor, who has attended the church since she was three, remembers the night of the attack.
The 81-year-old said her father, an air raid precautions warden, went out while the rest of the family hid under the dining room table.
She said: “When the siren went off my mother always made sure she had her engagement ring on and her fur coat just in case she needed to sell them to buy food.
“My father came back in and said there was a fire at Bearsden Cross because the sky was alight and it turned out the church had been hit by an incendiary bomb.
“It was devastating for Bearsden because it was the only building hit, but it brought the community together and people really rallied round.”