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Restoration of St Michael's Church, Linlithgow

M095 Restoration of St Michael's Church, Linlithgow

Address: The Cross, Linlithgow EH49 7AL
Date: 1894–6
Client: St Michael's Church, Linlithgow
Authorship: Authorship category 4 (Office) (Office)

Photograph of Linlithgow Church from S.W.

This major late medieval church was subdivided and fitted with galleries for Presbyterian worship after the Reformation. Between 1894 and 1896, John Honeyman & Keppie removed the galleries and the dividing wall, reinstated the chancel arch, and restored the building to its medieval form.

Authorship: There is good evidence that John Honeyman was in charge of the 1894–6 restoration. Mackintosh knew the church and made a number of sketches of it. He may have had some involvement in its restoration as a junior member of John Honeyman & Keppie's office, but there is no documentary evidence for this.

Alternative names: St Michael's Parish Church.

Cost from office job book: £806 1s 6d 1

Cost from other sources: In July 1894, it was reported that '[t]o restore the entire fabric to something like its original grace and beauty would entail a cost of fully £7000; but the committee entrusted with the matter have been able to raise only £3000'. 2 However, according to an account published in 1905, about £7300 had been raised before work commenced. 3

Status: Standing building

Current use: Church (2014)

Listing category: A

Historic Scotland/HB Number: 37499

RCAHMS Site Number: NT07NW 14.00

Grid Reference: NT 00235 77284

GPS coordinates: lat = 55.978137, lng = -3.600329   (Map)

Notes:

1: The job-book entry does not record any payments to E. C. Morgan & Son, although they appear to have been the principal contractors.

2: Aberdeen Journal, 7 July 1894, p. 4.

3: John Ferguson, Ecclesia Antiqua, or, the History of an Ancient Church (St Michael's, Linlithgow) with an Account of its Chapels, Chantries and Endowments, Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1905, pp. 122–3.