St Columba's Church

The building in the centre of this photograph is St Columba’s Free High Church. Not a ‘High Church’ in the sense of being ‘Catholic’ but named after the mound it’s built on. This building was constructed between 1851 and 1852 to designs by James Mathews (1819-1898) and Thomas Mackenzie (1814-54). Both of these men had their roots in the North East and studied with Archibald Simpson. MacKenzie designed a lot of buildings between Moray and Perthshire, but designed a few in Ross-Shire and Inverness as well. Perhaps due to his longer life-span, Mathews designed a considerably amount of buildings in Inverness-shire, Ross-shire and even further afield. John Rhind later modified their plans and St Columba’s was damaged in a fire and restored between 1948 and 1951 by Leslie Graham Thomson (later known as Leslie Graham McDougall). St Columba’s is interesting and unusual for a Highland Calvinist building for its inclusion of gargoyles. These add some variation to the line of Protestant churches on Inverness river bank. Seeing their vicious yet harmless sandstone faces amidst the pretty yet deadly petals of the foxglove (digitalis) that grows on the masonry is an ironically beautiful sight.