Hello Cousins, Please excuse the many attempts to send this report; I guess I've been using the wrong format. Anyway, I recently returned from a trip to Kilbirnie, Scotland. There, I toured The Auld Kirk of Kilbirnie and took pictures in and out of the old church. Because of file size restrictions, I will share my findings in several reports beginning with this one. In continuing reports I will attempt to share pictures of the inside and also the outside of the church and the old graveyard. Kindest regards Don Crawford This Crawford researcher had the pleasure of visiting with Reverend Ian Benzie, new minister of the Kilbirnie church where our Crawfords were significant in the daily life of the church and area activities on Tuesday, 18 May 1999. My simple words cannot begin to express the unex-pected impact this church had on me during my visit. The inside was elaborately decorated in beautiful dark wood panels, carving and relief. In earlier times, congregation members "pur-chased" "seats" in the church for themselves and their families. These seats were specific and were not to be intruded upon by others. Some "seat areas" were named such as the Glengar-nock Aisle, the Ladyland Pew, and specifically the Crawfurd Gallery. The Crawfurd Gallery was unique. It was a true gallery whereas it would remind one of a balcony area in a theater. It was above the other pews in the church and the entrance to the gallery was by private stairs. The Crawfurd pews within the gallery (balcony) were situated where the Crawfurds could see the minister and most of the congregation, but the congregation could not see the Crawfurds. The Crawfurds sat on the front two rows, closest to the pulpit and their servants sat on the back two rows. Church services would last for 2 to 3 hours in the morning and another 2 to 3 hours in the afternoon. Therefore eating and preparing meals was a problem. The Crawfurds solved this problem by utilizing a room off from their gallery. (This room is now the reverend's bene-fice.) As you can imagine, the Crawfurds had control of a large area within the church. I had the pleasure of examining the complete area. The following is taken from present day church documents and is written mostly verbatim. I have added certain reference notes. THE AULD KIRK OF KILBIRNIE, SCOTLAND A DESCRIPTION The Auld Kirk (Old Church) of Kilbirnie is thought to owe its foundation to the Irish Celtic Saint Brendan, "The Navigator", born in Tralee, later Bishop of Clonfert on the Shannon, who is credited with having sailed to America by way of Iceland. Brendan was involved in Christian missionary endeavour in Scotland at the same time as Saint Columba brought Christianity to Iona in 563 A.D. Brendan is recorded as having vis-ited Iona, and his name is given to Kilbrannan Sound and to Christian settlements on Mull, St. Kilda, Birnie (near Elgin) as well as North Ayshire, where the local St. Bren-dan's Fair has been observed in May annually. Christian worship is thought to have been offered on or near the site of the present church since the 6th century. The first definite reference to a church on this site is given as 1127. This was in the reign of David I. "The sair sanct for the crown", as his descendent James I described him. David was a benefactor to the Church in general, probably seeing it as a buttress for the power of the Crown. The next reference is in 1275, and arose due to a demand from Pope Gregory X for a levy of one tenth of the income of all churches for six years to fund a Crusade. The Collector for Scotland, called Baiamundus de Vitia made an assessment on a more satis-factory basis, and "Bagimont's" or "Baidmund's" Roll, as it came to be called, re-mained the basis for taxation of Church property until the Reformation. The sum ar-rived at for the church in Kilbirnie was £40, and was, in the values of the time, a very considerable amount of money. Apart from an early gap of 47 years, the church has an unbroken line of ministry since 1361, which is set out under the Crawfurd Gallery. The present pre-Reformation1 church nave and tower were constructed between 1470 and 1490 at the direction of the Abbot of Kilwinning Abbey, a foundation of monks from Tiron in France. The church building is among the oldest in Scotland in continuous use, and the sand-stone used in the construction probably came from local quarries, where stone had been exposed by the action of the Paduff and Pundeavon Burns. Later extensions followed. - The Glengarnock Aisle: The Glengarnock Aisle of 1597 was constructed by Sir James Cunningham of Glengar-nock Castle. This was built thirty-seven years after the conclusion of the Scottish Ref-ormation in 1560, and six years before the Union of the Scottish and English Crowns under James (VI and I) in 1603. The Crawfurd Aisle: The Crawfurd Aisle of 1642, comprising the Gallery, dining room and family burial vault, was erected by Sir John Crawfurd. The magnificent Gallery was probably constructed of local oak by itinerant skilled craftsmen, and was embellished with the family heraldic achievements in 1705 by the first Viscount Garnock, grandson of Sir John Crawfurd. The Crawfurd family home, Place Castle, was destroyed by fire in 1757, and the family moved to Fife. When the male succession failed in the early nineteenth century, an Irishman named John Crawfurd, laid claim to the title through the courts, but was unsuccessful. However, on his death in 1833, Lady Mary Lind-say, then the family head, gave permission for his remains to be interred in the vault along with the remains of Sir John Crawfurd and various other descendants. The vault is now walled up permanently. The remaining part of the vault contains pre-Reformation gravestones removed from the churchyard for safekeeping. - The North Transept: The population of the parish of Kilbirnie in 1755 was a mere 651 persons, a low figure for an area of eleven thousand acres, most of which was poor wet agricultural land. The coming of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions brought the population to more than 2,600 by 1841. Most worked in the Knox thread mills. With the opening of the Glasgow, Paisley, Ayr and Kilmarnock (later Glasgow and South Western) Railway in 1843, the sandstone, coal, ironstone, fireclay and limestone workings, lime kilns and brick works and Merry & Cunninghame's ironworks beginning production in 1843, the population of the parish more than doubled in the decade to 1851. The church with this influx, was too small to accommodate its worshippers, and the proposal was made to Ayr Presbyterian to demolish and to build a replacement church. Fortunately a programme of improvement was decided on, and this saw the first wooden floor installed, the old gallery being put in place, and the belfry rebuilt in 1853, a hundred years after its original construction. This sufficed until the turn of the cen-tury, when the most extensive alteration was carried out. The new North Transept of 1903, in the Scots Baronial style, was designed by the leading church architect of the time, Charles Johnston of Edinburgh, and for the two years required for its execution, the congregation worshipped in the Good Templars' Hall, Bridgend. On its completion the carved panels were added to the front of the old and new galleries. - The Organ Chamber: The last major structural work was the Organ Chamber of 1910, which encloses the 2 manual and full pedal board organ of 1911, built by Ingram of Edinburgh. The only al-teration to the original registration was made in 1996 with the substitution of an 8' Dul-ciana on the great, with a 2' fifteenth made in 1879 by Joseph Brook, of Spring and Brook of Busby for an organ in St. Ninian's Episcopal Church in Pollokshields. Several features of the church commend themselves to the visitor. Whilst many of the roof timbers in the east nave date from the 15th century, the oldest item of church furniture is the pulpit of local Scots pine, which dates from approxi-mately 1580. It appeared during restoration that the pulpit had been painted white at some time, perhaps during the period of Episcopacy. Later it was common for the minister to baptise from the pulpit, and to this end and iron bracket and a pewter bowl are affixed beside the steps to the pulpit. Of interest are four brackets which support the book-board, and which are carved into human faces of different types, symbolising the preaching of the Gospel to all mankind. Later repairs to the pulpit have been executed partly in oak. Between the years of 1853 and 1903 the pulpit stood against the east gable of the nave (where the Ladyland Pew is now located). The pulpit has been raised on Quebec yellow pine, first imported in the 1820's. The sounding board above is full of scriptural alle-gory. The Ladyland Pew, now removed to the east gable, used to stand next to the Crawfurd Gallery before the demolition of the original north wall of the church in 1903, bears the date 1671, and the Arms of Barclay, then the owners of Ladyland. Constructed of lime and chestnut, the Pew is thought to have been variously altered from a less elaborate flat canopy supported by pillars. The church bell which hangs in the tower bears the date of 1753, and the name of the then minister, Malcolm Brown, who had the distinction of being the incumbent for a pe-riod of sixty years, dying in the hundredth year of his age. Also on the bell is the name of "Ioannus Milne, Edinburgo" who cast it. He was also a maker of cannon. Communion tokens are extant from 1769 and 1864, the former carrying the initials M.M.B.K. (Mister Malcolm Brown Kilbernie). The Stained glass is in different styles. The oldest windows are in the Glengarnock Aisle, showing Biblical flowers and fruit, and are from the 1890's. The glass is proba-bly English, as are the Knox windows in the east gable. Other windows include those out of Scottish studios of Sydney Holmes, of Guthrie and Wells (1949) Gordon Webster (1959) and Arthur Spiers (1990). Two windows and a painting in the north wall together represent the Trinity. God the Son is depicted in the Lamb of God window removed from the former Glengarnock Church after its union with the Barony Church in 1978, when the Barony Church came to be known as Kilbirnie Auld Kirk. At its installation in 1986, the flag borne by the Lamb of God was changed from the Cross of St. George to the Scottish Saltire. God the Holy Spirit is represented by the Dove in the Arthur Spiers window installed in 1990 to commemorate 500 years of worship in the present church. God the Father is repre-sented in the oil painting by the Irish artist Liam Treacy installed in 1995, following extensive renovation and restoration carried out on the church with generous grant as-sistance from Historic Scotland, The Baird Trust, The Ferguson Bequest and the Scot-tish Churches' Architectural Heritage Trust. In 1990 the ladies of the congregation worked the tapestry designed by Kirkcudbright artist, Joan Milroy. Its central panel incorporates the Celtic and Jerusalem Crosses, re-flecting the Church's Celtic foundation and its putative links with the Crusades. The ring of Glory, comprising five concentric growth rings, symbolises God the Father and Eternity, and the Holy Spirit is portrayed in Dove and Fire symbols. The left-hand panel symbolises Healing Ministry, Preaching, the three Christian Tradi-tions of worship in the present building, Prayer and Praise. The panel on the right shows the five local industries through five centuries; agriculture, iron-works, coal-mining, cotton-spinning and steel-making. Outside the church, to the south side lies the churchyard, extended in the middle of the 19th century, containing the Crawfurd Mausoleum erected by Captain Thomas Craw-furd, and on its north side the actual grave of himself and his wife. The Mausoleum contains only their effigies in the dress of the period. Captain Crawfurd captured Dumbarton Castle from the supporters of Mary Queen of Scots in 1571, three years af-ter Mary had fled to England and captivity. The inscription2 on the north face of this little structure was replicated in 1929, and erected inside the church on the south wall of the nave. The graves of a number of ministers lie adjacent to the south wall. This is by no means a full description of the church; only a personal visit can do justice to its history, when, on examination, most of the features will be found to be self-explanatory. The completion of the extensive programme of restoration of the building has left the church in better condition than it has probably ever been at any time. 1 In these centuries, as elsewhere in mediaeval Europe, there were developments of the hierarchy, the parochial system and the religious houses. In this period Scotland's main links were with France, England being a common enemy. Scots were influenced by their participation in the Council of Basel in the 15th century, and the primary reforming influences in Scotland in this and the sub-sequent century were the conciliar movement, Hus, Luther, Zwingli and, above all, Calvin. The Reformation culminated in its legal establishment in 1560. In the 17th century, following the union of the Crowns of Scotland and England in 1603, attempts to con-form the Church of Scotland forcibly to the Church of England, particularly the latter's hierarchical structure and its subservience to the Crown, led to conflict and persecution, ending in 1690 with the Revolution Settlement establishing the reformed church in its Presbyterian form as the national church of Scotland. >From mid 18th to mid 19th century there was considerable controversy and schism in the church, much of it focused on the church's relations with the civil authority; the largest 'Disruption' was in 1843, when over a third of the Church seceded over freedom from civil intervention in the appointment of ministers. Since then most of those schisms have been healed, the majority of each of the separate reformed churches being now reunited, following a large reunion in 1900 and the largest in 1929. At each of the major set-tlements there was a minority which did not accept it: at the Reformation in 1560 some in outlying areas adhered to Rome; at the Revolution Settlement in 1690 some adhered to the episcopalian rather than Presbyterian form; at the 1900 union some continued as The Free Church of Scotland, and at the 1929 union some continued as the United Free Church of Scotland. 2 Inscription: HEIR LYIS THOMAS CRAVFVRD OF IORDANHIL SEXT SON TO LAVRENCE CRAVFVRD OF KILBIRNY AND IONET KER HIS SPOVS ELDEST DOCHTER TO ROBERT KER OF KERRISLAND 1594. (Here lies Tho-mas Crawford of Jordanhill, sixth son to Lawrence Crawford of Kilbirnie and Janet Ker, his spouse, eldest daughter to Robert Ker of Kerrisland. 1594)