Research in Action on Church Heritage 

The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in partnership with Scotland’s Churches Trust, has secured funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Pilgrim Trust for Research in Action on Church Heritage (formerly the Finding Futures for Scotland’s Churches project).

This project will provide a rapid assessment of the heritage assets of churches, prioritising those at risk of closure. It will create a comprehensive framework of information to help prioritise significant heritage at risk, and mobilise and support individuals, communities and organisations to find sustainable solutions to ensure that heritage of local and national importance is not lost when Scotland’s church buildings are repurposed.  

We will provide the knowledge base to help make informed decisions regarding sustainable uses for Scotland’s churches, and retention of their material culture and intangible cultural heritage involving a range of communities in building this knowledge and developing a professional network to prioritise need and create momentum to tackle challenges.  

Why Are Churches Important?  

A rich tradition at the heart of communities across Scotland is at risk, with around one third of the country’s 3,000 places of worship predicted to shut by the end of this decade.  

With nearly 200 of these heritage buildings already closed since 2020, the problem is an immediate one, and one that constitutes a national challenge for the heritage sector since many of these churches hold tangible and intangible cultural heritage significance.   

Scotland’s church buildings and their contents represent a wealth of cultural heritage built-up over generations. There are over 3,000 such buildings, belonging to a range of different denominations, and encompassing a variety of building types and periods of construction, from the early medieval period to the more recent past.  

In addition to their religious and ceremonial significance, they also possess tangible architectural, historical, archival, genealogical, archaeological and artistic legacies that can be of local, regional, national, and international importance.  

What Will Research in Action on Church Heritage Do?

The project will focus on three key areas:   

Rapid Needs Analysis 

We will immediately begin collating country-wide information on:  

• heritage value (including built and material culture, architectural and setting significance), and;  
• community value (including use, need and social value) and related Intangible Cultural Heritage.  

We will prioritise the churches currently at risk of closure and sale as listed by Scotland’s Churches Trust. Existing information from Church of Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, local Historic Environment Records, specialist subject interest groups, and previous projects and initiatives will be collated. Where key knowledge gaps are identified, heritage surveys will be undertaken, using the award-winning Recording Churches Project as a model, working with local communities wherever possible.  

Where knowledge gaps are identified regarding community value, we will apply the University of Stirling’s Social Value Toolkit to provide the information, working with up to five local community-representative organisations from amongst the network created by the Make Your Mark campaign, which the Society helps coordinate.  

This information will be made publicly accessible through a dedicated microsite with a regularly updated database and blog; gaps in the Trove.scot database, and relevant Historic Environment Records, will be updated toward the end of this project phase. This will be a swift process which will help inform immediate decision-making and will continue as an evolving exercise.  

Initiating an Action Group and Prioritising the Need 

We will draw together people and organisations working within this diverse area to explore practical solutions, share resources and prioritise sites for further action. This group will regularly meet over the 24 months to undertake the following sequential actions:  

• Identify, collate and support information gathering for the Rapid Needs Analysis; 

• Create a list of priority sites of very high heritage and/or community value;  

• Develop a Second Phase of the project to address this list.  

As part of the project, we will organise a symposium to update and discuss the Rapid Needs Analysis. Through the action group we will work closely with Development Trusts Association Scotland, National Churches Trust, Historic Churches Scotland and others to garner the perspective of existing community-use (and to inform the Assessment Phase) and will also involve regular updates to the Places of Worship Forum.

Developing Second Phase 

Building on the initial analysis and action group, we will develop a plan for providing creative solutions to ensure that heritage of local and national importance is not lost when churches are re-purposed. 

We will hold a workshop to allow different organisations to feed into this and submit funding bid(s) as the main output and legacy.

For more information, please contact Dr Lizzie Swarbrick FSAScot, Research in Action on Church Heritage Research Manager, at lizzie@socantscot.org. 

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