Dornoch Cathedral
Dornoch, Highland
The Cathedral is a 13th century church set in the heart of the Royal Burgh of Dornoch, seeking to serve the wider community in which it lies along with its sister churches.
The present St Andrew’s church replaced a corrugated iron 'tin tabernacle' built on the same plot in 1878. The present building was designed by Ross and Macbeth of Inverness in 1887, and it is situated in a beautiful conservation area.
Inside the church, you’ll find many treasures. This includes one of the few unaltered C & F Hamilton organs that dates back to 1914. Much of the woodwork in the Church is by the Yorkshire craftsman Robert ‘Mousey Thompson’ whose characteristic trade-mark is a mouse lovingly carved into each piece. The St Andrew’s ‘mice’ have been described as running everywhere, and if you look carefully you can find seven of them, hiding on the lectern, pulpit, altar rail, and reredos (the woodwork behind the high altar) and in one of the memorials.
The windows contain lovely stained glass by a range of makers and designers: Ward and Hughes, Ballantine and Son, Ballantine and Gardner, AL Ward, EB Souden/P Ross-Smith and William Wilson RSA, one of Scotland’s finest artists, who worked in stained glass, print and watercolours and learned stained glass making in an apprenticeship with James Ballantine at Ballantine and Gardner in Edinburgh.
The walls of the church are adorned with memorials, plaques and dedications to those Christian souls that he gone before us and left legacies in the buildings and facilities that we enjoy today. A booklet giving some background and detail of each of the 20 or plaques and the dedication of windows and furnishings is available at the back of the church.
The bell tower (which is currently being rebuilt, with the aid of a grant from NCT) houses a single bell which is used each Sunday, bears the inscription Evening, Morning and at Noonday, God shall hear my voice (Psalm 55). The bell was dedicated on 6th May 1951.