Alloa St Mungo's Kirk Session

Identity area

Type of entity

Corporate body

Authorized form of name

Alloa St Mungo's Kirk Session

Parallel form(s) of name

    Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules

      Other form(s) of name

        Identifiers for corporate bodies

        Description area

        Dates of existence

        1600 -

        History

        There has been a congregation at St Mungo's since long before the Reformation with a chapel dedicated to St Mungo existing in Alloa since the 14th century. Following the Reformation, the church’s first minister was Reverend James Duncanson.

        Originally, Alloa was in the parish of Clackmannan, but during the 14th century it was disjoined and became attached to the Diocese of Dunblane with the parishes of Tullibody and Alloa uniting in 1600. After the union of the United Free Church and the Church of Scotland, the church was more frequently known as Alloa St Mungo's in order to distinguish it from other Alloa churches. It has also been known at various times as Alloa Parish Kirk, the Established Kirk or the Auld Kirk.

        The congregation moved to the site at Bedford Place, Alloa, in 1819, where they still worship today under the Reverend Sang Yoon Cha. The new church building, an early Neo-Gothic design, was built due to state of disrepair of the previous building; the danger of falling masonry meant that services had to be held outdoors wherever possible. Architect James Gillespie Graham and builders John Smith and Ramsay Traquair (all of Alloa) undertook the contract in 1816 and the church was opened on 20 Jun 1819 with a capacity to seat over 1500 members; today the figure is 600-700. The current land of the church was gifted to the congregation by John Francis Erskine, who later became the seventh Earl of Mar, on the condition that the land never be used as a burial ground. Stones from the Auld Kirk were used in the building of the Bedford Place church in order to cut costs and engravings can be seen on the brocks that indicate they had been used in a different building beforehand. Additions to the church were made in 1936-37 with the costs being absorbed by public subscription. The details of the reconstruction are detailed in Reverend Pitt Watson’s book ‘A Reconstruction of St Mungos’, however, the onset of war meant much of the work was left unfinished until 1967 under the supervision of Reverend Peter Brodie.

        In 1927, the church bought a nearby building and converted it into what was known as the St. Mungo’s Halls, but the property was later sold in 1994 due to the cost of renovation.

        Places

        Alloa, Clackmannanshire

        Legal status

        Functions, occupations and activities

        Mandates/sources of authority

        Internal structures/genealogy

        General context

        Relationships area

        Access points area

        Subject access points

        Place access points

        Occupations

        Control area

        Authority record identifier

        C0409

        Institution identifier

        Rules and/or conventions used

        ISAAR(CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families, International Council on Archives (2nd edition, 2003); Rules for the construction of personal, place and corporate names, National Council on Archives (1997)

        Status

        Level of detail

        Dates of creation, revision and deletion

        Created 15 Dec 2020, Revised 23 Feb 2022

        Language(s)

          Script(s)

            Maintenance notes