In 1898 when the Kirk Session applied to the Trustees ot the church tor

permission to ‘introduce instrumental music into the church’ the Trustees

replied that they had no objections so long as the Kirk Session was responsible

for all the expenses. It did not take long to raise enough money to buy an

organ, and after paying £25 for one bought in Dundee, the organ committee

had nearly three pounds left over which they put into an organ fund.

Instrumental music first appeared when St. Mary’s Church (at St. Mary’s

Place, Market Street, St. Andrews, built in 1849-50, and which later became

the Victory Memorial Hall and is now the Madras F.P. Hall) installed a har-

monium in 1874. After prolonged discussion in the Town Kirk as to whether

it was ‘regular’ the Town Kirk eventually decided to have a harmonium as well.

The church was needing repairs again in 1907. It had already been re-

ported in 1900 that the belfry and the roof of both the church and the manse

were in need of extensive repairs. The cost of over £300 was raised by a

large contribution from the Bazaar Fund and by a bequest from the Orphat

Fund (money left by a former church Trustee).

At this time the church did not worry about insurance for its workers as

in 1909 when the clerk submitted a proposal from an insurance company to

ensure the church officer against accident, for an annual premium of five

shillings, the clerk ‘was instructed to write to the agents of the insurance

company declining the offer’.

Also in 1909 Mr. McLeod submitted a list of improvements he would like

to have made in the church and manse. He thought a new Vestry was needed

and he ‘was desirous of having a bath fitted up in the Manse, as, in his opinion,

the Manse was incomplete without one’. He suggested having a ‘sale of work

the proceeds from which added to the surplus of the last Bazaar would go

far to cover the expense’. He also wished the congregation to subscribe to

the fund for increasing the ‘small livings’ fund which aimed to increase the

minister’s stipend to at least £200 in small living parishes such as Strathkinness.

Plans were drawn up for a vestry and for a bathroom in the manse, but as

the ‘bathroom would cost £75 and the vestry £150... and the balance at the

bank, after heating and cleaning arrangements had been carried out was £118

or thereby, the Trustees could not, in the meantime, proceed with the pro-

posed improvements owing to the lack of funds’. The account for drawing

up the plans for the proposed vestry and bathroom was just over £4.

The first minute book of the Established Church in Strathkinness ends in

1909 with the church in a reasonably sound financial position. Although there

were some years when the income from seat rents did not cover the current

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