21 August 2024
A beautiful Gothic rose window was the adornment of the Wesley Chapel on Inglis Street located in Inverness in the Methodist Church in Scotland. Built in the early nineteenth century, the church was designed in the Norman style.
Over time, it gradually deteriorated after the lower part was converted into shops, and the upper part first into a cafe and then a betting shop. Wesley Chapel was demolished in the early 1980s by developers constructing the Eastgate Shopping Centre. Prior to the demolition, the local council had the church’s rose window removed and put into storage for safekeeping.
However, Methodism in Inverness was not linked to Wesley Chapel, it started well before its construction and continues well after its destruction.
John Wesley visited Inverness for the first time in 1764 where he preached at the Old High Kirk – the oldest church in Inverness. Built on the low hill of St Michael’s Mount the church was first mentioned in 1170. Even though the building that we see nowadays was built in the 1770s, the church tower base dates back to the 14th century.
Methodists first settled in Inverness in 1746 as a side effect of the 1745 Jacobite rising. Ninian Dunbar, an English Methodist, had fought for the Jacobites on Culloden Moor. After being captured, he was sentenced to death and escorted to the gallows on Crown Hill by fellow Methodists serving under the Duke of Cumberland. They sang and prayed with him.
Among the troops garrisoned in Inverness, and later at Fort George, over the following years, there were always Methodist soldiers who spread their faith to the people of Inverness.
Christopher Hopper, one of Wesley’s first itinerant preachers and first President of the Conference in Wesley’s absence, was a leading member of a Methodist Society near Newcastle. Between 1751 and 1761 Hopper travelled extensively across Scotland, setting up Methodist Societies. Upon his arrival in Inverness, he established a proper Methodist Society.
Hopper’s Methodist Societies were inspected and approved by Wesley in 1764. From then on, the Society became part of a group of societies stretching from Aberdeen to Wick. When Wesley returned to Inverness in 1770, he met a budding congregation and preached at Dunbar’s hospital. By the end of the year, the Methodist Society had converted a disused malt kiln into their first chapel.
The appointment by Wesley of Duncan Macallum in 1776 further developed the society. Macallum became the first Methodist minister in the North when he was ordained in 1787, and, ten years later, he saw the building of a new chapel on Inglis Street.
The congregation kept growing and the chapel trustees decided to demolish the old chapel and build Wesley Chapel in 1866. The church had a particularly beautiful (and expensive - £1,200 at the time!) rose window installed, paid for by bookseller James Keith of Dingwall.
The congregation was still growing and, in 1922, they bought the old Inverness Music Hall on Union Street. On the night of 6 December 1961, the building was destroyed by fire. The current church was built on the other side of the River Ness on Huntly Street. Since it opened in 1965 it has continued as a place of Methodist worship and service in Inverness.
Now, more than 40 years later, the window is being given a new permanent home at Inverness Castle, which is undergoing a redevelopment project to open it as a tourist attraction. It is hoped that the castle, which has been closed to the general public for almost 200 years, will open to visitors in 2025.
Wesley Chapel’s rose window will see the light again and be a stark reminder that Methodism is strong in Inverness and Scotland.
Photo credit: Balon Greyjoy, CC BY-SA 3.0