Crathie Kirk

Crathie has been a place of Christian worship since the 9th century when a church was founded on the banks of the River Dee by Saint Manire (Bishop of Aberdeenshire and Banff and a follower of Saint Columba, the pioneer of Christianity in Scotland). It is traditionally held that Manire baptised Pictish converts in a pool of the Dee east of the modern village of Crathie. A single standing stone at Rinabaich is all that remains of Manire's church (where Manire himself is reputedly buried). Subsequent places of worship were situated further west, near the location of present-day Crathie village. The ruins of a 13th-century church, dedicated to Saint Manire, stand on the riverbank south of the…

The walls are built of local granite and the roof made of Scots pine. Building materials were donated by the surrounding estates, and £5000 raised from the local population to fund construction. A gift of £2,000 was made by Queen Victoria's daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Louise who raised the money at a Bazaar held in the grounds of Balmoral Castle. The church, built in the fashionable Gothic Revival style by Elgin architect A. Marshall Mackenzie, was completed in 1895. Marshall Mackenzie then went on to build St Ninian's Chapel, Braemar, for Queen Victoria's grandson-in-law, the 1st Duke of Fife. Crathie Kirk's south transept is reserved for royal use. The north transept contains…