Dundonald Church
The year 2024 marked the 220th anniversary of the present Church building in Dundonald and this seemed an appropriate time to produce a brief history of Christian worship here. The building is the third Church on the present site and Christianity has a long history in the area, dating back into the mists of the early Celtic Church.
A very detailed and scholarly parish history was written in the 1930s by the Rev J H Gillespie (1) and this has been an invaluable source of information, and an inspiration for the writing of this history. Further encouragement and scholarship were provided by the late Robert Kirk, an elder in the church and a very knowledgeable local historian.
While this series of pages represents a very much more superficial survey of parish history than that produced by Rev Gillespie, it is hoped that it will provide a more accessible account for those who do not wish to undertake the task of reading that definitive history.
Introduction
These pages contain a series of episodes and events from the life of the Christian Church in Dundonald in Ayrshire. They are not in strict chronological order but each snippet is largely self-contained and can be read without referring to other sections. The subject matter is treated fairly lightly but a bibliography is included for those who wish to look further into the history of Dundonald Church.