Welcome to our web site. We hope you enjoy exploring this site to find out what is happening in our parish church. Please come back and visit again soon.
We see ourselves as a church which is here for everyone in the local community. We believe that it is vital that everyone who comes among us is given a warm welcome and made to feel at home. Our most important activity is of course worship and you are welcome to join us at any of our services on Sundays and Thursdays.
There is also a wide range of activities on offer for people of all ages and we would invite you to find out more about them through our web site.
Peterculter Parish Church was formed in 1999 March 1999, through a union of the former congregations of Kelman Memorial and St. Peter’s. At the time of the union it had sole responsibility within the Church of Scotland for all of Peterculter and a small section of Milltimber in regard to public worship, including funerals, weddings and baptisms. The present church building was built in 1895 and an extension was added to the front in 1995 to mark its 100th anniversary. The church was completely refurbished in 2001 and now has a comfortable interior with flexible seating.
On 1st November 2023 a further union took place between Peterculter Parish Church and Drumoak-Durris Church further extending the parish boundary. The name of the new parish remains Peterculter Parish Church.
On Tuesday 24th June 2025 we held an Induction Service for Rev Emma McDonald who has now taken up her post as parish minister.
We are a Church of Scotland congregation in which leadership and pastoral care are provided by elders, who work in partnership with the minister. Along with other local congregations, our congregation comes under the jurisdiction of the Presbytery of Aberdeen and Shetland. At a national level, all congregations come under the authority of the General Assembly, which gathers in Edinburgh during a week in May.
We hope that if you do visit us that you will find us welcoming and open. We have Good News to share and we would be delighted if you wish to join us in worshipping God and seeking to follow in the way of Jesus Christ.
Communion Table Centenary
The large Communion Table in Peterculter Church was 100 years old in April.
It was originally the Communion Table at St Peter’s Church and it bears the inscription:
“This Communion table is dedicated to the glory of God, and in loving remembrance of Alice Margaret, wife of Captain Holland, C.B., R.N., daughter of Theodore and Margaret B Crombie of Culter – 18th April 1920”.
Callum Stuart, from the Heritage Trust, recently undertook some research into the background to this inscription. Alice Margaret Crombie married Captain (later to be Rear-Admiral) Hubert Henry Holland on 14th February 1912. Daughters- Joan Kathleen Holland was born on 6th December 1912; Joycelyn Maud Holland was born 27th July 1917. A third daughter, Alice Margaret Holland arrived on 15th November 1918. Her mother, Alice Margaret Holland, died on 30th November 1918, just 2 weeks later. The obvious conclusion would be that this was as a result of childbirth – in fact Alice was a victim of the Spanish Flu which according to her death certificate she had been suffering with for 16 days. The communion table and chair were presented, by the Crombie’s of Culter, to remember her untimely death.
When Theodore Crombie died in 1922, the Rev. James L Thomson said:
“We think today especially of his great interest and help towards the work of the Church of Christ. He was a devoted member of the West Parish Church, Aberdeen, of which he was for many years an elder. We also know how interested he has been in this church, contributing generously to the organ fund, while he further greatly improved the church by the alterations carried out in the choir seating, and in the gift of the beautifully carved oak Communion table and chair in memory of his beloved daughter. We think, too, on the very special interest which in these days of feebleness he took in the erection and equipment of the new Recreation Hall.”
The Recreation Hall mentioned above is now the Village Hall.
Alice Margaret was engaged in 1939 and is pictured in the Society Pages- but the marriage does not seem to have taken place- instead she eventually married Philip Alexander Clement Bridgewater (1910-1979). He had a previous marriage to Ursula Vanda Maud Vivian, Countess of Glasgow. She was a decoder for SOE during the war in Italy, it stands for the Special Operations Executive
Alice, as you can see in the photograph below, lived to get her telegram from the Queen and died on 3 April 2019 in Tavistock, Devon.
