No Sanctuary for Christian Heritage in Scotland?

Mark Huitson, 5 September 2025

Introduction

Throughout our five-year campaign to have an extraordinary medieval Knights Templar discovery equitably evaluated by the Scottish establishment; we found a widespread environment of prejudice, discrimination, avoidance, and indifference exhibited by government heritage agencies, academia, politicians, the professional and voluntary sectors, the local authority, agents of the Crown, the local community and various Scottish interest groups, organisations and societies.

The indifference and avoidance presented before us, was not because institutions and groups within the establishment had considered the evidence and disavowed our findings, but because they either did not want to recognise or felt no obligation to consider the discovery. Either way, it illustrated considerable deficit in terms of wanting to understand and protect the nation’s Christian heritage, and a willingness to challenge the previous misunderstanding of ancient material-two bells, badly evaluated over one hundred years ago, within the significant deficiencies of Victorian skillset, expertise, and access to research.

Whereas we can forgive those who perhaps considered the discovery was not their concern, thus thought not to assist or get involved, we are less than impressed with their absence of basic decorum, ie., a polite reply and deferment to our multiple, earnest petitions. Regrettably, rude silence certainly represented the majority of those with whom we engaged.

Regardless of the reasons for non-replies, whether poor management or administration, their silence is inexcusable—an example of poor leadership and a lack of care.

Within our campaign, we also approached Scotland’s institutional orthodox Christian establishment, a few local independent evangelical churches, and notable Christian commentators operating within academia or on social media. Our approach was different from what it had been for secular organisations and individuals, recognising the fundamental understanding that any Christian Church institution or Christian believes (or should believe) God moves within, directing behaviour through Biblical teachings and the Holy Spirit, and that all Christian organisations, despite any liturgical and doctrinal differences, believe in the basic and essential tenets of Christian conviction—theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and the cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude.

Our approach to Church organisations was less about asking for recognition of medieval history found, appraised through dedicated and objective understanding of evidence and circumstance, but a cry for mentorship and guidance for two individuals who had been assailed by worldly deceit and indifference. One, a professed Christian, directed by bizarre circumstance to find what should never have been lost, and two frustrated souls, convinced their discovery was not happenstance but by design. Two, trying to understand why their modest ambitions and daily joy of making a home for their family and books had been interrupted by extraordinary circumstances not of their making.

Our case, we felt, was underpinned by our substantial effort to understand the Christian heritage of which we had become custodians. We considered we had exhibited prudence—our stewardship of the intelligence God and nature bestows on every one of us; to understand what is misinterpreted and overlooked through ignorance and indolence. The Church, of all institutions, should appreciate those Christians who pursue reason and knowledge with diligence and vigour, particularly those who embrace knowledge and understanding with the humility of a child. Our writings in presentation demonstrated that humility; our completeness to understand what we did not, and our challenge to all that we thought we understood.

There was a truancy of justice in our dealings with the secular establishment. An absence of fairness, as well as prudence. A demonstrable truancy of truth telling, maintaining promises, being straightforward, and committing to the truth of the understanding of our discovery. In turn. we anticipated the Christian organisations we approached would recognise the challenges presented by our case, as we pursued justice for the purpose of promoting truth and serving the public interest.

In our journey, set out in chronicle and investigation, we demonstrated undeniable fortitude—courage of our commitment to our extraordinary charge, despite the cost, not only to our purse (which has brought us significant financial depravation) but to the deficit it has brought to our lives, separated by unwanted circumstance. None of our trial was about the wealth and recognition the discovery could bring, as we had already eschewed a worldly greed for costly material possession, exchanging it for simplicity and generosity, and replaced worldly status for integrity—regardless of the cost to our professional careers.

Thus, we offered up our discovery to the Church in Scotland, in the context of two individuals trying to adhere to the very principles of their faith, seeking pastoral care while they brought benefit to bear for others, and in doing so, offer help to the Church.

Background

In 2020, ‘Digger’, a trained forensic archaeologist, and I, an experienced historical researcher, carried out a collaborative scholarly study on two medieval bells sold to us along with a dilapidated eighteenth century-built church.

In consideration of the scant historical record available, there was an obvious disparity over the recorded age and sponsorship of the bells. One of the bells was initially reported by the first parish minister of Holywood in the late eighteenth century, as consecrated in 1154, confirmed by engraving he possessed matching the sponsor’s name carried on the bell. The other bell, undated, was unmistakably of pre-thirteenth century design. This belief stood for a hundred years, documented within the eighteenth and nineteenth government-commissioned, Statistical Accounts of Scotland, as the bells were inspected and the site considered by various notable antiquarians visiting Holywood. Despite this, a Victorian historian, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, in 1898, supplanted the initial record with his own unevidenced and errant hypothesis—that the bells were both manufactured in the early sixteenth century. His supposition was accepted by his antiquarian society without challenge and without question. However, his idea, not long in the making, was challenged by a 1911 government audit (published in 1920), which in theory should have dismissed the Victorian historian’s revised dating.

To any competent reviewer, there was no evidence to support the sixteenth century dating attributed to the bells, yet it was this singular theory, challenged a mere thirteen years after it was made, that was allowed to form part of the historic record of the church and subsequently influence the building’s valuation when the Church of Scotland disposed of Holywood Church, which it considered a liability, in 2010.

The Sale of Holywood Church

In 2009, some ten years before our involvement with Holywood, there had been a campaign led by a locally regarded ecclesiastic and the town’s provost to have the bells removed from the deconsecrated church of Holywood at the campaigners’ expense, and placed in a local museum or another church, and so save the ancient bells from being lost to the public in any private sale and redevelopment of the church as a dwelling.

The disposal of the building by the Church of Scotland was an understandable operational reality in an area that has largely abandoned its Presbyterian adherence, in the increasing de-Christianisation of a nation’s former religious identity attached by its principal recognised denominational Christian Church institutions—the Presbyterian (Protestant) Church of Scotland and the Scottish Roman Catholic Church.

At the time, the campaigners, with strong associations with church bells and heritage, refuted the sixteenth century dating given to the bells on the public record, judging the bells to be made far earlier, and as such far too precious to be disposed of as a redundancy along with the building. However, the Church of Scotland dismissed the campaigners and their request to remove the bells, deeming the bells no more than unwanted fittings to be included in any future sale.

Regrettably, the campaign failed to attract any public or council support, and so the church was sold for around thirty-five thousand pounds to a developer seeking to convert the Georgian building into a three-bedroom home, with its bells included, as promoted by the Church of Scotland’s legal agents, as merely a ‘quirky’ architectural feature.

The Church of Scotland’s Disposal of the Bells

The Church of Scotland’s dismissive attitude towards retaining the bells in the public domain as the only remnants of a former twelfth century-built abbey that once sat on the same site, was questioned by a few concerned members of the public in 2009, again in 2010, and again by Digger and I in 2020. We, like the campaigners before us, were in disbelief the Church of Scotland would purposefully discard two relatively small medieval bells, rather than work with the previous campaign to see them salvaged from a private sale and a housing development and instead presented for the public’s enjoyment as an accessible material record of the area’s spiritual history.

However, what remained even more illogical was that the Church of Scotland, in its last hundred-years of ownership of Holywood Church, did not rationalise its understanding of the antiquity of the bells, especially after doubt was pored on the veracity of the1898 re-interpretation. This disinterest in the bells provenance was inexplicable, considering Holywood parish’s own eighteenth and nineteenth century ministers had testified, on record, one of the bells was consecrated in 1154, making the bell the oldest datable bell in the UK, and so of considerable historical interest. But what was even more incredulous, was that local understanding of the former abbey, recorded by John McCormick in 1843, implied the abbey was created in the twelfth century as a Knights Templar preceptory/infirmary. With the abbey church-build occurring no earlier than 1124, the association of the 1154 bell with the Templar foundation of the site was palpable.

We conjectured, in appraisal of James Barbour’s legend, a locally recognised Victorian historian, vice chair of the local antiquarian society, architect and lay member for the United Presbyterian Congregation, that he had sufficient influence to see his views maintained, rather than properly challenged. Thus, his misinterpretation was allowed to corrupt the understanding of the bells, and therefore comprehension of the site’s origins.

However, regardless of James Barbour’s legend, it was no excuse for the Church of Scotland to ignore the evidence on the bells in its consideration of their future once the church had closed. This truancy of consideration extending, it appeared, to the catastrophic, decades-long environmental (humidity) problems the underlying archaeology had presented within the building. Moreso, when a few pieces of random decorative stone were unearthed from under a small section of the church floor in 1965, there must have been consideration that far more remained interred, adding to the potential problems the church would present to future development. All this information, on record, should have formulated the Church’s understanding of the asset in its charge, before deciding on disposal.

Approaching the Scottish Church

Finding nothing but avoidance, obfuscation and idiocy from academia and heritage governance with regards to assistance towards the discovery, we turned to the Christian establishment for help. We approached a variety of Orthodox Christian organisations in Scotland, both locally and nationally, including some notable international Christian commentators.

Our approach had three main threads. Firstly, it was a plea for guidance and support from two battle-worn individuals, one a confirmed Christian, who genuinely felt God had purposefully moved them towards the discovery. An event supported by the finders’ extraordinary personal circumstances, life journey, and unique skills acquisition.

The discovery was presented to the Church institutions with only incontestable fact within a considerable web of inarguable interlacing circumstance. The research was a peerless understanding of two medieval bells in our possession; a study immeasurably superior to any prior understanding—offered without any supportable or evidenced counterargument from those deemed by the establishment as the best placed specialists.

It was a find, that in our opinion had no right to have been lost in the first instance, never mind undiscovered, especially as the site had already been understood locally to be a former twelfth century-built Templar preceptory, and one of the bells reported consecrated in 1154. Digger and I could not accept the past keepers of the church and local historians were so unaware as not to have already made the discovery.

The second thread was recognition through forecast, that the two main denominational churches in Scotland, with a connection to the Holywood site were in decline, set to collapse before 2040—the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Roman Catholic Church.¹ We wanted to help in any way we could, particularly as the find would eventually, once we circumvented the barriers presented before us, generate significant world interest and generate income and publicity to help us assist said establishments.

[¹ www.churchmodel.org.uk]

Reconnecting the Church of Scotland with the Holywood site would give the organisation opportunity to mitigate any criticism they may receive for any past careless decision making and misunderstanding, while potentially providing much needed urgent financial assistance.

The Catholic Church, also in decline in Scotland, but statistically having a better forecast for revival, particularly with new papal leadership apparently intent to realign the Church’s leadership with fundamental Christian moral virtues rather than worldly ideology.

Although the Catholic Church’s involvement with the site and the bells had ended in the sixteenth century with religious reformation, in many ways the historic connection to the bells was far stronger with the Roman Church in Scotland—the Church that originally backed the bells, their Templar founder and the abbey that developed beyond Templar possession. The bells had equal time under Papal authority as under Protestant keep, and as the bells no longer were in Protestant ownership, the Catholic Church had just as much right to be involved in recognising its own heritage in Scotland.

The third thread was contact with other Christian denominations, evangelical churches (the author’s own Christian fellowship roots), and those Christian commentators who had influence through social media. These avenues of support were far more about moral support for us, and not about promotion of the discovery, although it was the discovery that had brought the finders to their knees, pleading for help from the Christian community—help to understand why their lives had been disrupted so significantly.

Our Petition to...

The Church of Scotland

We had already contacted the Church of Scotland in 2020 to interrogate the information held in their archives concerning the church and site of Holywood. It confirmed that no other information other than what we had already gleaned from public record was available. Church archivists stated no record of the church pre-1820 existed, and any pre-reformation record, now part of the historical collection housed in Aberdeen University was devoid of anything referring to Holywood Abbey, with some archivists observing that even with destruction, the total absence of record was abnormal.

In March 2025, we petitioned the Church of Scotland, offering up our extraordinary campaign in the context of a Christian perspective.

Read our petition

Key to the petition was our request for mentorship and moral support, ‘for telling the truth and trying to save a significant part of Scotland’s Christian heritage’. We confirmed how we appreciated ‘why the Church of Scotland was forced to sell its asset, Holywood Church, and how it had been deceived over its true worth, proposing to share the significant wealth the former Church of Scotland’s property would have realised if it had been informed by a competent understanding of the provenance of the bells and site’.

Mindful our discovery was Christian artefact, we declared we had turned to Christian organisations in the region; Evangelical, Roman Catholic and even national and international Templar organisations, hoping they could help us realise the discovery and direct any ‘value’ in the bells into real benefit for the many, befitting the approval of the medieval Christian and Holy architects of their creation.

Read the Church of Scotland’s response

The Church of Scotland’s response was hollow, bearing little relation to the Christian sentiment and content of our petition. Sympathy was expressed regarding the decline of Digger’s health (an near fatal respiratory incident), specifically due to the anxiety of our case. The Church promised to forward our discovery on to a specialist in church artefacts, however the Church admitted there was little the Church of Scotland could do, as they were no longer owners of the church, referring us to Scottish Churches Trust for advice and support.

The Church of Scotland’s current lack of proprietorship of Holywood Church had nothing to do with the substance of our petition. They had ignored the point of our petition completely. As for the sympathy expressed, it was naught if they did nothing to help us resolve what in fact was orchestrated by their own negligence.

No follow up by the Church of Scotland has ever been received, and so we must assume the promise was either not kept, or the 'specialist' recipients of our petition failed to act upon it. There has been no authentication or disavowal of our find, no enquiry, instead replaced with disinterest and ignorance. It is a poor demonstration of essential Christian behaviour in what should be regarded as vital in any Holy institution—a beacon set above the inequities of the secular establishment, providing solid witness as to the qualities of the Christian faith and the proper prudent, righteous and resilient action that should spring from it. Those officers and agents representing the Church of Scotland have no excuse for poor behaviour.

Forecasts lead to the conclusion the Presbyterian Church, as it exists as a denomination, recognised as the Church of Scotland has perhaps run its course. We suspect although the Catholic Church is also in decline, we doubt it will share the same fate as the Church of Scotland. Of course, God moves those within any Christian family, and so forecasted demise is never certain. However, if our opinion counts, we add further illustration why the Church of Scotland has failed to deliver and sustain the Gospel in the nation—maintain and grow its flock. It is an institution that appears to have abandoned the basic virtues that should set it apart from the secular establishment, bending instead to intellectual vanity, self service, negligence, slack ideology and ignorance rather than the Word—understanding and wisdom that fosters ethical and right action. The institutional Church’s ranks, whilst no doubt containing the virtuous and commendable, also (through demonstration) field individuals and leaders that fall far short of what should be unquestionable responsibilities and behaviours of the virtuous Christian.

The Catholic Church in Scotland

A senior Catholic cleric, not connected to the Scottish Catholic Church, had thoroughly considered our case and tested our discovery, and advised us to petition the Catholic Church in Scotland regarding the circumstances around the find, and the potential benefits we thought the discovery may bring, not only for us, the area, but the Catholic Church in Scotland, and how it could help enhance its message and outreach. However, the cleric warned us of the ‘difficulty and challenge’ the Catholic Church in Scotland was facing, including internal conflicts with the Catholic Church leadership, and that we should not be surprised or disheartened by its likely response to our petition.

At a local level, we had already contacted the Catholic parish church twice, without response, and later visited, talking over our frustration with a parish priest, who was friendly but deferred the issue, as it was outside his understanding.

Our petition was sent to the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, to the Most Reverend William Nolan, by registered post and email on June 23, 2025. We received no response.

Read our petition

A follow up letter was sent on August 2, 2025. Again, there has been no acknowledgement or response.

Read the follow up letter

In July 2025, we received ‘off-the-record’ intelligences the petition had been handled by the Diocese, and so a lack of response of any kind, was extremely disappointing. We, of course, cannot report on why we should be ignored so rudely, but there was little excuse for a lack of basic decorum. The Diocese had access to our archaeological report and our journey from discovery to our earnest and heart-felt petition, so to be rejected so dismissively did not contribute to our overall confidence in the institutional Scottish Church to act prudently, fairly or charitably. Whereas the Catholic Church may have viewed us, not as Catholics, so outside their pastoral care, the bells were certainly part of the the Catholic Church's heritage, and we as custodians should have been considered worthy of their effort.

Other Denominational Churches

Despite the existence of other recognised denominational churches in Scotland such as Scottish Episcopal and the Free Church of Scotland, we only contacted the Salvation Army. In the past we had supported the Salvation Army’s work, having a significant professional relationship with members in the nineteen-eighties and nineties. We had discriminately held on to the past admiration we had for the exceptional quality of the ‘Army’s’ officers and the organisation’s legend, so we anticipated a positive interaction in terms of help and a way forward that would benefit both us and their work in the area.

Sadly, the Salvation Army did not respond to our petition and visits in person to their centre in Dumfries were less than inspiring. A difference of locale, personnel, focus, ideology, and forty years of change were factors we had not properly considered in our deep-held respect for that Christian agency.

Local Evangelical Churches

The presence of several local evangelical churches evidenced the Christian Church in Scotland was far from dying but growing. New churches had sprung up from the twentieth century onwards, growing and multiplying. We did not contact them all but focused on the largest and most local to Holywood.

We petitioned as besieged individuals seeking answers to a dilemma. It was not about the extraordinary nature of our find, but about our extraordinary journey to its discovery. We asked were our circumstances by chance or design, and if by design what was the ultimate purpose?

Three out of the four churches contacted responded to our petition, taking the matter to the leaders of several evangelical churches in the region. They engaged with our request for help, offering all they thought they could offer, in what they considered to be a remarkable event—prayer.

Christian Commentators on Social Media

We contacted several respected Christian commentators operating on social media—those that came with endorsement from those we trusted. We hoped they would use their reach to help us further our campaign. Some replied with helpful advice, some referred us to others providing useful insight, some made promises we have yet to see delivered, some did not follow up their deferment, some ignored our requests; none provided us with an immediate outlet to help us further our cause. However, without knowing how much time and consideration they invested in our entreaty and evidence, it is difficult to know what help they actually did offer, as it is certain influential Christians have since ‘found us’ to offer what appears to be moral support for our contribution to ‘a larger scheme (we assume to be a Christian revival) dictated by timing’.

One of the local ecclesiastic campaigners trying to safeguard the Holywood bells from being lost within a private house development, the Reverend Andrew Crosbie, was a beta reader of our initial archaeological report. As a concerned ecclesiastic, bell ringer/historian/enthusiast, he had strong views on the merit of James Barbour’s 1898 contribution to local history, founded on several reports the antiquarian had made which completely denigrated the history of several regional church bells, through conceited assessment. At the time, Reverend Crosbie’s critique of our report was amusingly restricted to “wow”, but he agreed to help us take the matter forward and secure recognition for the bells for what they were, as opposed to what they were not—to give them the opportunity to be displayed in a museum or be re-sited in a different, publicly accessible church.

Unfortunately, Reverend Crosbie left the UK soon after reading our report, so probably was in no position to help further. However, he later contributed—posting his disdain of the local council on social media, in reaction to the news of our conflict over planning in 2025. Regrettably, his solitary comment highlighted the fact he was alone in his condemnation of the bells being ignored for what they represented, and concern over their treatment. It highlighted the fact that with the Dumfries community indifferent to the heritage, notwithstanding the significant value of the bells, the likelihood of a successful transfer of the bells to a local institution, or development of the site as a signpost to the site’s history was unlikely. Schemes and attractions rely on tourism, but with little draw to Dumfries in terms of attraction, reliance on local support is essential. With local interest in the area’s heritage limited, as demonstrated by the closure in 2024, due to public apathy, of Moat Brae in the centre of Dumfries; the house and garden that was the inspiration for J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, so soon after millions of pounds of investment (2019).

No Sanctuary for the bells in Scotland?

In 2020, we wanted to make sure, in the development of Holywood Church, that its bells were not lost to the public. We sought proposals to display them on site, understanding that their ringing days were over, which meant bringing them down from the tower and displaying them on the ground floor with public access.

However, in the necessary understanding of the bells, we uncovered an irrefutable truth, a rediscovery—the bells were remnants from a Templar preceptory, sponsored by a Templar master, and as such were unique in a world full of medieval bells. The evidence and research we provided was immeasurably superior to anything that had been produced on the bells previously, yet those responsible for considering and recording the history of the site, ignored indisputable truth. The bells were inarguably priceless, regardless if the state refused to recognise them as such, and therefore could not be displayed on site, unless Holywood Church became a secure building, purposed to display the bells with security measures to suit—and not our home.

In attempting to secure the opportunity for the bells to be displayed in a Scottish museum or hung in another Scottish church to ring out like they had done for nearly nine hundred years, we met unbelievable obstacles of ignorance, deceit and apathy, with the community playing their part in an indifferent environment of heritage celebration and conservation. The institutional Christian Church in Scotland regrettably added to this woeful delinquency, and so whereas we had hoped the bells and church could be transferred to a Scottish concern, for enjoyment by the nation, we doubt such ambition will ever be realised, unless there is contrition from the Scottish establishment—we fear that will only come with humiliation, and humiliation is not a sound foundation for the sustainable protection and veneration of the Christian artefacts in question, nor the Holywood site, with its interred archaeology.

Outside planning restrictions, indifferently administered by the local authority, there appears to be little interest in safeguarding the Christian history of the site, in terms of preservation. In many ways the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Catholic Church’s apathy is a continued tale of elimination of the abbey’s physical presence and record—a two-hundred-year purge that has bewildered archivists and archaeologists alike. Eradication that appears to have a degree of orchestration—mystery and collusion, with speculative imaginings and real circumstances of secretive governmental, political, and Masonic influences, with a colourful history of highly influential local landowners with connections to the opiate trade.

In many ways, evidence reveals the Church of Scotland’s and the Scottish Catholic Church’s dismissive and careless attitude to the disposal and treatment of the bells, is merely a reflection of the region’s lack of concern for its Christian heritage, and the failure of the country’s principal state recognised Church institutions to ensure the sustainability of a nation’s spiritual and moral adherence in the third millennium. There seems to be little action to fortify the public’s understanding of its society’s Christian foundation, and the handover of religious heritage to new generations. Redundant churches are increasing at an alarming rate, their disposal becoming no more than a development and planning problem to solve, protected by law, and dispassionately administered by uncaring, indolent and unimaginative bureaucrats, within a political climate that is demonstrably anti-Christian.

In the aftermath of news stories about our fight with the local authority over planning issues we have been approached by individuals from agencies, including the Development Trusts Association and the Scotland’s Churches Trust, who amongst other activities support community groups considering taking over the glut of unwanted Church properties entering the market. In many ways our own story is a cautionary tale. Developing cheap redundant, (and in our case misrepresented) churches does not represent sound investment for those without deep pockets. That anyone considering taking a redundant ancient building from the Church of Scotland should carry out vigorous, independent research, before purchase. No reliance should be given to the integrity of the information provided by the establishment, in all its forms—church, commercial, or governmental, nor rely on professionals to present proficiency of behaviour to seek a competent understanding of the heritage and legacy of buildings under consideration.

Our experience has not slanted our positive view of the Christian Church and its significant and positive impact on Christian lives all over the world. Instead, the local response was simply further illustration of an already emerged pattern of apathy, prejudice and ignorance—a general issue that seems to repeat with Scottish Institution—a significant complaint that will only be confirmed by further debate and discussion with those working with, or subject to their governance. We hope recognition of the Christian heritage in our possession can still be delivered with a positive message with regards to proper Christian prudence and justice over secular and non-secular artifice, deceit and incompetence.

Christian organisations should set the benchmark for integrity, providence, understanding and benefaction to the wider community as well as the Christian family. In context of a secular, perhaps sardonic viewpoint, it may seem bizarre the Church of Scotland was not directed by God to understand the nature of the bells of Holywood whilst in their possession—and the value they would bring to an impoverished institution fighting to rationalise falling congregations. However, if you take a Christian viewpoint, then you must ask why the bells, with an extraordinary Templar provenance and legend, have been delivered to two people outside the institution of the Church, but Christian, nonetheless.

Regardless if we are qualified to judge the Church of Scotland or the Catholic Church as Christian safekeepers, in context of the bells and parish of Holywood, it is clear the Scottish institutional Church long ago became unworthy of their keep and their discovery. The Christian Church in Scotland is far from dying, but as in the sixteenth century when reform was necessary to realign the state-recognised Holy Church back to foundational beliefs, again the Church in Scotland must reform to counter the malignancy that has corrupted the moral, prudent, merit worthy and selfless foundation of Scottish society. The malignancy that has obstructed the truth of the Bells of Holywood being celebrated in Scotland.