M139 Alteration to Nairn Parish Church

Built to an ambitious Gothic Revival design by John Starforth of Edinburgh (d. 1898), Nairn Parish Church was opened on 23 July 1897. 1 Curiously, John Honeyman & Keppie's cash book records that on 26 February that year the firm was paid £28 for unspecified work in connection with the church. 2 Why John Honeyman & Keppie should have been employed to alter an unfinished building designed by a living architect is not clear, unless Starforth's failing health (he died on 18 May 1898 from a heart condition) 3 prevented him from overseeing the later stages of construction.

Authorship: Ronald Harrison, an early student of Mackintosh's architecture, included 'Door Alteration', Nairn Parish Church, on a list he compiled in the 1930s of drawings produced in the office during Mackintosh's time. Harrison may have believed that Mackintosh made the drawings on the list, or that he contributed to the design of these buildings in some way, but no evidence has come to light to support this attribution.