300 Years of Ministry at Crown Court
The Church of Scotland has had a presence in London since at least 1603 when James VI, King of Scots, became King James I of England. It appears that courtiers who had followed the King from Scotland worshipped in a chapel in the precincts of the old Whitehall Palace, a site that later became known as ‘Scotland Yard’, and subsequently housed the offices of the Metropolitan Police. From at least 1711 a group of Scottish Protestants gathered in a meeting house in St Peter’s Court off St Martin’s Lane. The congregation grew steadily as the number of Scots in London increased, and on March 24 1719 the original Scottish Kirk on the site of the current Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden was opened for worship.
So in 2019 the congregation of Crown Court will be ‘celebrating and renewing 300 years of service in Covent Garden’. Plans for the Tercentenary Year are already well under way, and include a special service on March 24 2019, which by happy coincidence is a Sunday, at which we are delighted to welcome as preacher the Rt Reverend Susan Brown, Moderator of the General Assembly.