IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Marchlands Avenue, BO'NESS, EH51 9ER

This small church building is home to the Scottish Episcopal church congregation. Internally it is probably the most beautiful of Bo’ness churches. The church makes itself open to many organisations including the local branch of AA. St Catharine (note the spelling), legend has it, was a saint of Alexandria whose intellectual defence of Christianity so upset the pagan king that he had her crucified on a wheel. Pictures of her in European art often show her with the wheel.

Writing in the 1720s, Defoe stated in his 'Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain', that Bo'ness "has been, and still is, a town of the greatest trade to Holland and France of any in Scotland, except Leith (...) for as they have the most shipping, so they are the best seamen in the Firth, and are very good pilots for the coast of Holland, the Baltic and the coast of Norway". From the 1770s, however, most of the burgh's trade was slowly lost to its rival, Grangemouth, following completion of the Forth-Clyde Canal. "The houses, bearing the marks of antiquity, are low and crouded; but for the most part, clean and commodious. The smoke from the coal-works, was lately a great nuisance. The town involved continually in a cloud, the houses were blackened with soot, the air impregnated with vapour, and strangers were struck with the pandemonium appearance of the place. But these nuisances being now removed from the immediate vicinity, to a considerable distance, and more attention paid to cleaning the streets, the air is more pure and salubrious, and the town assumes a very different aspect. Still, indeed, the smoke from the Grange coal works on the east, the Bo-ness salt-pans on the west, and the dust excited by the carts carrying the coals to the quay for exportation, occasionally incommode the inhabitants." -- Old Statistical Account, 1794

Looking north east.

Residential street, Bo'ness.

This building is typical of those appearing when there were splits on the kirk in the 1800s. A kirk session many years ago arranged for the painting of hundreds of stars on the dark wooden ceiling. Strictly speaking one should of course pay attention to the sermon not count stars.

Originally Bo'ness Free Kirk, but now a United Free kirk, with a crown spire on the tall tower. Built 1883-1885 to a design by John McKissack (c 1844-1915) and William Gardner Rowan (1846-1924).

United Free Church of Scotland

Designed by local architect Matthew Steele (1878-1937) and built in 1909, this is said to be his best work.