St Andrew's Parish Church, Main Street, Golspie

St Andrew’s Parish Church, located on Main Street in Golspie, is an ecclesiastical building dating from 1736-7, built on the site of an earlier chapel dedicated to St Andrew. The church is cruciform in layout and constructed with harled walls and ashlar margins. The main body runs east to west, with a contemporary Sutherland north aisle and a later south aisle added in 1754. An entrance is situated in a small, square, re-entrant angle on the southeast side, partially concealed by a small porch. The south elevation features small ground and gallery windows, while the south gable has a paired long window with a smaller window in the centre. Long windows light the gallery in both the east and west gables. A forestair provides access to the north aisle’s east elevation, accompanied by two ground floor and three first-floor windows on the west elevation. An apex stack, detailed with a moulded cornice and string course, is visible externally. Multi-pane glazing is used throughout. The west gable apex is crowned by a ball-finialled bellcote, with flat skews and a steeply pitched slate roof. A stone ridge runs along the roofline.

The north aisle is fully occupied by the Sutherland laird's loft, which incorporates a rear retiring room. This loft features a panelled interior and front, with an enriched entablature dated 1739 supported on Corinthian columns. A panelled ducal pew and a coved ceiling are also present, all crafted by Kenneth Sutherland, a joiner from Dunrobin. An imposing, panelled pulpit, also by Sutherland and dated 1738, is positioned at the angle of the south and west aisles, having been moved to this location in 1752. It features an Ionic pilastered backboard with a keyblocked blind inner arch, and a hexagonal sounding board with an ornate moulded cornice. Galleries are located in the east and west aisles; their panelled fronts were probably stepped to their present form around 1849.

The interior walls are finished with simple white plaster and display some mural tablets. Plain grey painted panelled pews closely resemble those originally designed by George Hay in 1954, and the floors are laid with stone flags. A bell, first founded in 1696 and re-founded in 1728 by Robert Maxwell of Edinburgh, is present.

A coped, coursed rubble wall encloses the burial ground, which contains a memorial to the Gordons of Carroll erected in 1883, alongside various 17th, 18th, and 19th century tombstones of interest. Some tombstones were re-sited within the burial ground following the realignment of the A9 road in 1982-3, which necessitated rebuilding a section of the rubble wall. The church remains in use as a place of worship. Historical records indicate a 1736 visit by representatives of the Presbytery who found the church in a dangerous condition, leading to enlargement and the addition of the north aisle, costing approximately £169.1s3d, including the pulpit. Earl William oversaw the construction, which included fixed seating. Structural issues resulted in the south aisle’s construction as a buttress; while the exterior stonework is dated 1754, the work was completed by 1752.