a brief history...

and more detail...

Until the latter part of the 19th Century there was no church within the village of Newtongrange. After the disruption of 1843, people from Newtongrange had the habit of walking to Dalkeith to attend services at the then Free Church of St Johns.

Open-air services began to be held in the village during the summer of 1874, the service being taken by Mr D.D.Bannerman and several Elders from St Johns. To meet the winter conditions and the longer-term requirements, an agreement was reached to rent the Iron Hall of the Mining Mission Association. This was subsequently supported by a grant to employ a missionary, a Mr Alexander B Thompson. The congregation numbered some 100 souls out of a then village population of around 220.

As the strength of the congregation grew, so did the desire to have a building of its own. Aided by a gift of land from a member, Mr John Romans, the self styled "Laird of Newtongrange", sufficient funds - £1,280 - were raised to build this church at the North end of the Village, to be called the Newbattle Free Church. This building still stands today, now known as the Masonic Hall, home of the Masonic Lodge of Newbattle St Mary. In 1884 the General Assembly granted the people of the village the right to call a Minister of their own. The same Alexander B Thompson was asked but declined the post. Eventually a man who would be the Minister in Newtongrange for some 32 years, the Rev Alexander Hardie, a Minster of the Presbyterian Church of England, filled the post. As time went on a Manse was built halfway between the then Church and the School, both still stand, although the Manse is now a private dwelling and the School is now a Community Centre.

New off-shoots of the Church began to spring up - The Band of Hope, Sunday School, Youth Fellowship, a Woman's' Work Party, a Lady Visitor to help the Minister, the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood (P.S.A.) The Young Worshipers League, to name but some. The Rev Hardie's sons were to have an influence of their own; the younger became a Doctor and served the greater part of his working life in the Church's Mission Hospital in Southern India - a fact that resulted in a visit by the Vice Chancellor of Madras University to Newtongrange in 1973. He was in Edinburgh attending a Commonwealth Conference and remembered that as a boy he had received medical care in the Mission Hospital, from that same Dr George Hardie, late of Newtongrange. The elder son, Alec, became an Architect of some repute, designing several buildings within the Village including the recently demolished Palace Cinema, the Miners Institute and laid out the plans for a new Church and Hall complex, although the latter did not come to fruition until the 1930's. Co-operation between the Newbattle United Free Church and the Newbattle Church has always been amicable and supportive. Their respective Parish boundaries overlapped each other within the villages of Newtongrange and Easthouses - this situation being resolved with the Reunification of the Churches in 1929. When the Rev Dr Carrick retired from his long ministry at Newbattle in 1912, he received a warmly worded letter of best wishes from the Session at Newtongrange, to which he replied " Not once have our kindly relations ever been strained, I always felt at home with you". On the first Sunday after the Reunification, the respective Ministers of Newbattle and Newtongrange exchanged Pulpits as an act of friendship and welcome. In the early 1920's the population of the Village had grown to around 7,000, with a Congregational roll of more than 500. It was becoming obvious that the then Church building was just not big enough to accommodate all the activities, particularly with the Boys Brigade and the Girls Guildry now in full swing. The effects of the National Strikes of the 1920's had a correspondingly adverse effect on the financial well being of many Parishes across the Nation. Newtongrange, with its high dependence on Mining, was particularly hard hit. The Lothian Coal Company had been approached with a view to obtaining a piece of land on which it was hoped to build a new church. A special appeal raised £100, which represented a tremendous effort considering the desperate straits that many found themselves to be in.

Although the land was available in principle, without further funding nothing could be done. It was not until 1934 that the Presbytery of Dalkeith declared Newtongrange a Church Extension Charge; this allowed the Parish to obtain finance from the Church of Scotland’s Central Fund. Within a year a new Church Hall, one of a number throughout Scotland, was built on the new site at 6th Street, under the guidance and auspices of Dr John White.This new concept provided a multi-function facility, a Church on Sunday with Communion Table, Pulpit and Organ that could be curtained off during the rest of the week to allow other organisations to make good use of the facility. The fortunes of the Parish improved markedly in the following year, the arrival of the Rev Alexander Greig in 1935 signalled a revival in membership, during one communion alone, 112 new members were admitted.

An extra communion service had to be added, at this time, in addition to the two normal morning and afternoon services. The authoress, Annie S Swan, resident in Gorebridge at the time, was in the habit of addressing the Congregation at these third communions.

To further supplement funds and to help affect repairs to the Manse, the lady members of the congregation started a new venture called a “Country Fayre”. It was still felt that something better and specifically worship dedicated was still required. The plans of Alec Hardie were re-examined and with the co-operation of the Home Board a start was made to the present Church building, the foundation stone being laid by Mr James Hood, Chairman of the Lothian Coal Company on the 6th of June 1939.Work progressed until the outbreak of the Second World War on the 3rd of September of that same year. Work virtually ceased, labour and materials were both in short supply, a question was even asked in the “House” by Captain Maule Ramsey regarding the delay, could resources be found to complete this community project? It was finally completed and declared open at a dedication Service led by the Principal D.S. Cairns of Aberdeen on the 14th of March 1942. The cost of the project was put at £1,250, of which to Parish would have to repay the sum of £650, a considerable sum of money in wartime Britain. The Men’s Club came forward with a proposal, tabled by the President Mr George Allan, supported by Mr William Purves and Mr James Kerr.The idea was that each household in the village would be asked to contribute 2d a week, this to be collected by volunteers, thus giving to the call “Here comes the tuppence-a-week wuman” to be heard throughout the village.It had a galvanising effect on the village and the Parish Role rose to 865 by the time the debt was paid off. So impressed were the Lothian Coal Company that they donated a Hammond Organ.

As the War drew to a close it became obvious that all was not well with the Church Building. It had started to indicate a tendency to tilt, further design work was carried out and just after the War a system of external buttressing was added to increase the foundation area. So good indeed was the design of the modification, that it all looks as though it has always been the way it is now.

From it’s inception, the Church Hall became a focal point for social events within the village in this pre-television era Drama was a particular favourite, the play “The Hewers of Coal” written by a miner, Joe Corrie and directed by George Humphrey, a Mining Mechanical Engineer, with another mining man Adam Haldane in the lead part, won the Scottish Community Drama Award. It went forward to the U.K. Championship in London, being narrowly beaten into second place apparently because the adjudicators had difficulty with the Newtongrange accent. The adjudicators’ education had obviously been seriously neglected.The peak of the drama era was reached during the spring of the years 1953 to 56. The Newtongrange Drama Festival, held over three week-ends, drew crowds of 1.500, judges came from Edinburgh to assess plays from Drama Groups from Temple to Tranent.

Within the Church itself there are a number of significant items that have been given by various groups or individuals over the years. The Bronze Plague, to the memory of the very first Minister, the Rev Hardie, takes pride of place in the organ gallery, the Communion Table gifted by the Woman’s Guild. The window of the Red Cross, in the wall behind the Table, was a gift from the Young Wives Group, presented on their behalf on Easter Sunday 1956 by a young Mother, Nana Morrison. Nana carried out the presentation from her wheelchair, stricken as she was by Multiple Sclerosis, an unforgettable example of Courage Determination and Faith. In the right hand Isle there is a Bronze Plaque depicting Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, a gift from Mrs Braden, the wife of the Rev Braden minister of Newtongrange during the 1950’s.One of the consequences of being a Church built during Wartime, the Bell Tower has no bells as such, brass and bronze being too much in demand for the war effort. Newtongrange was therefore one of the first Churches to have Electronic Bells, this being achieved by virtue of two large Klaxon Loudspeakers in the tower and in the first instance, the Bells being provided by a Gramophone. The benefits of this system being that if you could get the recordings you could ring the changes week to week, so to speak, Westminster Abbey this week and so on next week. 

The Church becomes the focal point each year for the Children’s Gala Week celebrations, the Hall provides a meeting and starting place for the Saturday Parade of the Marches, following on as a “feeding station” for the Court Members after the Crowning Ceremony in the public Park. On the Sunday the Church becomes the focus for the “Kirking of the Court”, an all ages act of thanksgiving and worship, with contributions from children within the Gala Court.Again on Remembrance Sunday, the Church plays host to the Congregation and the members of British Legion Parade in an act of Remembrance and Thanksgiving for the sacrifice of others for our well being today. This after the minister has conducted the traditional Service at the Memorial in the Public Park.