Crown Church of Scotland in Inverness prepares to welcome pupils from next door primary school following major upgrade including creation of nursery unit
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An Inverness church will open its doors to nursery pupils next month.
It follows a major upgrade and reconfiguration at Crown Church of Scotland to meet future needs of its congregation and local community.
In partnership with Highland Council, the lower hall has been converted into a two-classroom nursery unit for Crown Primary School.
On August 17 – a day after the start of the new school session – 64 three and four-year-old pupils will move into their new home.
As part of the partnership, the council has installed a new kitchen and toilets next to the nursery unit on the ground floor together with an eight-person lift to the upper hall and has also removed asbestos.
In a separate contract, the upper hall has undergone a £150,000 refurbishment to accommodate church and community groups which previously used the lower hall.
They include the breakfast and after-school clubs, Boys Brigade, Guides and a youth club.
The upgrade includes better use of space, improved heating, lighting and insulation, greater storage and enhanced audio/visual facilities.
In a third project, more flexible use of the sanctuary has been created by replacing pews with individual seats.
Work is pending to upgrade the lighting and audio/visual system with the help of a £74,343 grant from the Scottish Government’s Place-Based Investment Programme, administered by the council.
A meeting room for small group meetings is being created while future plans include the creation of a more welcoming entrance from Kingsmills Road.
Bev Douglas, acting head teacher at Crown Primary School, said the school was excited to be part of the partnership project.
“The children are all very excited about the move to their new classrooms and have been busy making artwork for the new rooms and choosing new items for the nursery garden,” she said.
Nursery pupils will access their new classrooms via a new entrance in the school adjoining the church.
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Crown Church Minister Douglas Robertson said the investment in the building had allowed the church to provide the congregation and the wider community with more modern, accessible and flexible space in which to worship and meet.
“We are delighted to welcome the nursery pupils from Crown Primary School into our building and there is scope for many other community groups to make use of our enhanced facilities,” he said.
“We are committed to outreach with a very clear sense of Christian purpose and to establish the church as the hub of the Crown community.”
Mr Robertson also paid tribute to the congregation for gifting £33,600 towards the costs of the Upper Hall upgrade and thanked the Council’s Inverness Common Good Fund for a £30,000 grant, the Scottish Government for a £10,000 grant for improved insulation through their Climate Communities Action Fund and £32,500 through the Adapt and Thrive Programme.
The main contractor on the Lower Hall conversion was Morrison Construction while I and K Ferguson carried out the upgrade of the Upper Hall and removed the pews from the main aisle in the Sanctuary.
To mark a completion of work carried out over the past two years, an open day will be held on Saturday August 13 between 10am and 4pm.
