Ellon’s parish history stretches back over 900 years. However, the present church was designed by George Edmund Street, the eminent Victorian architect, and is based on the design of the mediaeval parish church of Ellon, which was destroyed in 1776. It is a Grade A listed building and was opened on June 23rd 1871. It was consecrated on September 8th 1875.

The parish history of Cruden goes back for over a thousand years. The present Saint James's was opened in 1843 and was the first commission of the architect William Hay (1818-1888). Its tall, pinnacled tower and spire can be seen for miles around. The church is on Chapel Hill in the countryside a mile and a half from the village of Cruden Bay.

On Saint Adamnan’s day, Sepember 23rd, each year a group of people walk from Newburgh and meet another group who set out from Collieston. The meeting point is a roofless, medieval church close to the beach and on the edge of Forvie Moor.

Nearly a thousand years ago. It’s a long time but in the summer of 1012 there was great killing in Cruden.

The Vikings had established a settlement on Hacklaw, the hill closest to the beach. King Sweyn Haraldsson of Denmark sent his 17 year old son Canute to reinforce the settlement and, if possible, to defeat the Scots army.

April 16th is the anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, a battle which marked the virtual end of the hopes of the Stuart Kings to return to the British throne and which also heralded immense change for Scotland.

In preparing a talk for the Ellon Historical Society on a former Rector of Saint James’s, Dr John Pratt, I discovered that he had been a pioneer – and ahead of his time – in ecumenical thinking.

Among the many books that he wrote was one called – Letters on the Scandinavian Churches: their doctrine, worship and polity, which was published in 1863.

The chance finding of a newspaper cutting has led to the discovery of the origins of the mosaic panel in Saint James’s, and also to the fact that there was once a Chapel dedicated to Saint Olaf in the Church.

It was while clearing out some papers that I found the following extract which had appeared in The Buchan Observer in the Fifty Years Ago column.

April 13th, 2005, marked the 310th anniversary of the death of Bishop James Drummond. He was the priest at Aucherarder and Muthill before becoming Bishop of Brechin in 1684 - consecrated on Christmas Day in the Chapel of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.

Thursday, November 10th, 2005 marked the 115th anniversary of the loss of HMS Serpent, off the coast of Galicia in Spain, in 1890.

A brass plaque in Saint Mary’s commemorates the ship’s captain, Commander Harry Leith Ross, whose parents lived at Arnage Castle, north of Ellon.

The Serpent was a twin-screw cruiser, launched in 1887, and was the first vessel in the Royal Navy to be galvanized to protect metal plates from corrosion.

Advent Sunday in 1976 was a bright day with a strong wind blowing. After the Eucharist the congregation gathered on the rocky ground outside the front entrance to the new Hall as the building was dedicated and opened by the Bishop – Ian Forbes Begg. A party followed.