Hope Park Church, St Andrews
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Hope Park Church in St Andrews, Fife is a congregation of the Church of Scotland. The current building, by Peddie & Kinnear, was completed in 1865. It has notable stained glass windows and an unusual canopy above the pulpit.
The congregation can trace its origins back to the Associate Presbytery (led by the dissident Stirling minister Ebenezer Erskine), which broke away from the Church of Scotland in 1733. In 1738 a Kirk Session of a local congregation (initially worshipping outdoors) was recognised by the Associate Presbytery. For many years the congregation met in variety of meeting places in St Andrews, eventually in a purpose-built chapel at 52 North Street prior to the opening of the current building in 1865.
As the Associate Presbytery developed (and divisions emerged), the congregation – based on the Voluntary rather than Establishment principle – became associated with the Burghers, which in 1820 became the United Secession Church, which in turn became the United Presbyterian Church in 1847, which merged with the Free Church in 1900 to become the United Free Church of Scotland, which united with the Church of Scotland in 1929.
The current minister (since 1996) is the Revd David Arnott.
