166 ANNAN IN Last Four DECADEs oF 18TH CENTURY. 
examining the different situations proposed for building the 
church upon, with the plans and estimates given in, the Presby- 
tery and Heritors fixed upon Kilncloss as the most proper situa- 
tion ; adopted the plans and estimates given in by James Beattie 
and John Oliver, joiners, and John Hannah, mason, all in 
Annan; and agreed that the town and community of Annan 
should have right to one-half of the said new church.’’ 
Though the church bears the date 1789, the well-propor- 
tioned steeple, which is the principal feature of the building, 
was added some years later. The finely-toned bell of the kirk 
is said to have been appropriated, not bought. Mr J. H. 
Wilkinson, Annan, writes:—“I have been informed by old 
residents that the bell was made for some steeple in England, 
but being sent by mistake to Annan was there annexed, its 
value being recognised by the burgesses. It appears to have 
been brought from London to Leith by sea, and then carted to 
this town.’”’ 
The minister of Annan in 1789 was the Rev. William Hardie 
Moncrieff, whose father had held the living from 1754 to 1783. 
When the younger Moncrieff, after a long ministry, passed away, 
Susannah Hawkins, “the Annandale poetess,’’ as she styled 
herself, paid a tribute to his memory :— 
“By all he knew he was beloved— 
He unto all was kind; 
For virtues good, and charity 
How few like him we find.” 
Towards the close of the eighteenth century Congregational- 
ism made great progress in Scotland, owing to the missionary 
enterprise of the Haldanes. The distinctive principle of Congre- 
gational polity commended itself to many in Annan, and the 
Independents erected a chapel at Closehead. Hope of perma- 
nent success was soon abandoned by the devout men who 
honoured Haldane’s name; and early in the nineteenth century 
their chapel was sold to the Secession Church. Few ecclesiasti- 
cal buildings in the district have so strange a history as the old 
“meeting-house’’ at the head of the town. Built by the 
Independents, it was afterwards bought by Scottish Seceders, 
and eventually it became the property of the Roman Catholic 
Church. Excepting the Parish Church and St. Columba’s, all 
the existing places of worship were built later than 1801. 
