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The year 2001 marked the 250th anniversary of John Wesley's first visit to Scotland, when he crossed the border at Berwick and travelled north to Musselburgh, having received an invitation from Captain Gallatin, an officer quartered there in the government army.

Although Wesley had had no intention of preaching in Scotland, imagining that no one wished him to do so, he addressed "an abundance of people" during the evenings of April 24 and 25, after which one of the town bailies, together with a Kirk elder, begged him to stay longer: his programme did not allow him to remain, however, although he promised that "Mr Hopper would come back the next week and spend a few days with them."

He visited Edinburgh on April 25, returning to Musselburgh the same night. This first visit to Scotland was followed by a further 21 journeys spanning 39 years, the last of which ended on June 2, 1790, when he left Dumfries for Carlisle, having "conversed with many of the people: a candid, humane, well-behaved people ..."

His second journey, in 1753, took him to Glasgow, where on one occasion, despite heavy rain, his journal records that "upwards (I suppose) of 1,000 people stayed with all willingness" to hear his message, after which he answered a request to preach in the prison. His first class leader in the city was Dr John Gillies, minister of the College Kirk, Blackfriars, where Wesley preached as well as in the town hospital and in the High Street. It was Dr Gillies who provided him with a movable canvas pulpit for his outdoor services and was the first Church of Scotland minister to introduce Methodist-style singing in his kirk, in contrast to the customary metrical psalms and paraphrases.

It was not until Wesley's fifth journey in 1761 that he went further north, travelling via Dundee, Montrose and Stonehaven to Aberdeen. Methodism was already established there and, at the urging of Dr John Memis ("intractable Dr Memis"), Christopher Hopper, Wesley's lieutenant, had visited the town in 1759 but on returning in April 1761 was disappointed by encountering a spirit of controversy. Wesley therefore set off from Edinburgh for Aberdeen and preached there between May 2 to 6, recording that "all were earnestly attentive" as he preached in the college close at the end of his visit. He returned to Berwick-on-Tweed via Glamis, Edinburgh, Musselburgh, Haddington, North Berwick and Dunbar, where he preached on May 12 and 13.

He went on to make several visits to the town of Monymusk, 19 miles north of Aberdeen, where his friend Sir Archibald Grant built the model village which remains the heart of the community.

Wesley records preaching in Dundee, "on the side of a meadow near the town," in May 1764 but his first visit to Banff, also on that lengthy seventh journey, was not auspicious, since "I had designed to preach, but the stormy weather would not permit," so he set out next morning for Nairn en route to Inverness. Later visits to Banff proved more successful and he visited his friend, Lady Banff, on more than one occasion.

He regarded Inverness as standing "in a pleasant and fruitful country and has all things needful for life and godliness" and considered the cathedral at Elgin to be a noble ruin, "the largest that I remember to have seen in the kingdom." Using the ford at Fochabers in order to cross the River Spey, he described it as "the most rapid river, next the Rhine, that I ever saw."

His eighth journey in 1765 took him to Portpatrick (en route for Ireland). The 12th, lasting from April 15 to May 19, 1770, was from Edinburgh northwards via the Highlands - along approximately the same route as that followed later by the Highland Railway from Perth to Inverness. He arrived at Dalwhinnie, accompanied by John Helton, one of his preachers, on April 25 and stayed the night at "the dearest inn I have met with in North Britain". In the morning they were informed that so much snow had fallen during the night that it was doubtful whether they could get any further. Nevertheless, the two companions lived up to the adage that "Come rain, come hail, come wind, come snow, the Methodist preacher off must go", and resolved "with God's help, to go as far as we could", arriving in Inverness that night after an eventful journey.

Wesley preached four times in Inverness during the weekend and on his journey south visited Nairn, Aberdeen, Montrose, Dundee and Arbroath - "where the whole town seems moved. The society, though but of nine months' standing, is the largest in the kingdom, next that of Aberdeen" - and where today stands the chapel built to Wesley's favourite octagonal design, opened in 1772.

He went on to visit Arbroath 15 times on nine of his 22 journeys. The church's original ground floor interior is still there today, although an upper storey was added in 1869 and an organ chamber had to be built out from the octagon in 1946. The building fortunately escaped damage in 1999 when fire broke out in the roof space of the house next door to the hall. One of the windows commemorates the coxswain and six of the seven-strong crew of the lifeboat "Robert L Lindsey," lost on October 27, 1953. Three members of the church were among those drowned: Coxswain Captain David Bruce, a church trustee; Charles Cargill and his brother, David Cargill.

The title of Scotland's oldest Methodist church, however, goes to that in Victoria Street, Dunbar. It was a favourite of Wesley, who preached there 21 times and described it in his journal entry for May 17, 1770, as "the cheerfullest in all the Kingdom". His account of a visit to the town in 1757, on his third journey, relates how he went into the main street and "began speaking to a congregation of two men and two women. These were soon joined by above 20 little children and not long after by a large number of young and old".

The church had developed from a meeting founded by a group of men who had served in Flanders with the Dragoon Guards and had come under the influence of the Moravians. It was built in 1764 on land given by local farmer Andrew Affleck and now contains stained glass (look for the spelling mistake in one of the windows!) and an oak pulpit from St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh. The church today, enlarged at various times over the centuries, includes among its activities craft-work and house fellowship groups and a lunch club.

Edinburgh's Nicholson Square church is modern by comparison, being a classical church built in 1815-16 by Thomas Brown, with cast-iron columns supporting a U-plan gallery: the interior was renovated early in the 20th century. It contains a memorial tablet commemorating the Rev Dr George Scott (1804-74), who in 1830 was appointed a Wesleyan Methodist missionary to Stockholm, where his energy and influence led to a people's religious movement spreading from Sweden to Finland and Lappland.

By 1840 two chapels and a manse were built, with the Swedish chapel holding 1,100 worshippers. He helped to found the Swedish Missionary Society, the Swedish Tract Society and the Swedish Temperance Society and his work was continued through Carl Olof Rosenius, a convert who became a city evangelist.

During a visit to New York at the invitation of the American Bible Society in 1841, however, Dr Scott's unfavourable descriptions of Sweden were reported back and on his return to Stockholm there was a riot during which he was driven from his pulpit and his house mobbed. He was recalled to London and was at Gravesend until 1845, then at Aberdeen as superintendent and Chairman of the District. He also served in Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow and in 1866 presided at the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of Eastern Canada.

The church today has a full programme of activities, with the Square centre in the building's basement offering a week-day non-profit-making cafe, a chapel and premises which provide suitable venues for varied local events. There is a peaceful garden created from a disused quarry.

The Methodism founded by Wesley in Scotland was nurtured by his pioneer preachers, one of whom, Christopher Hopper, in 1759 included both Aberdeen and Peterhead in a preaching tour from his native Tyneside through north-east England and eastern Scotland. The first meeting place in Peterhead was a room in Broad Street.

Fifty-six years later, in 1815, the Topping's Hall was bought and briefly sold in 1828 before being bought back and maintained as an Independent Methodist chapel until 1834. For the next 11 years worship was held in the Sma' Ale kirk (the Small Ale church), so called since the premises had at one time been part of a brewery, before once more negotiating for Topping's Hall and using it for 20 years. In 1866 a new chapel was opened and remains in use, adapted for the 21st century.

James Turner, the Wesleyan Peterhead cooper and one of six Peterhead local preachers, was instrumental in reviving Moray Coast Methodism from 1859-62 and was honoured by Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists and some Brethren assemblies, as well as by Methodists.

Four new Methodist societies were born in a new Moray Coast circuit, at Portessie, Findochty, Buckie and Portgordon, while the causes in Banff, Whitehills and Cullen - where just one member remained by the 1830s - were revived. Buckie church today has a wide variety of activities "for young and not so young", with the last century seeing the addition of a hall and manse and changes to the interior of the church. Portessie has a "cathedral of the Moray Coast" which was opened in 1913, the successor to the "church doon the brae" opened in 1866, and was the church of James Riach, a local preacher and class leader there who travelled widely and taught in the Western Isles and in towns including Helmsdale, Portmahomack and Lossiemouth. He was drowned in 1871, aged 32, on a homeward voyage to Buckie. Portgordon chapel grew from 27 members of the Portessie society and fisherman John Hendry opened his garret for the use of the Methodists. The society was granted a minister by the Conference of 1872, in 1873 the foundation stone of a chapel was laid and the building was opened in 1874, with seating for 400.

Today there is plenty of interaction with the Church of Scotland in the form of united services; there is a thriving youth club and the Church of Scotland Sunday school meets in the hall. Findochty church, built in 1916, is in the shape of a cross. It has ongoing links with the local primary school, there is a weekly Good Companion club for senior citizens and Bible study and prayer meetings are held.

Another fisherman, George Findlay, founded Cullen's Methodist church in 1814, having found this "English religion" in the great Methodist missions of Yarmouth and Lowestoft. In the vestry of the present church, opened in 1905, is a photograph of the original thatched, small church. Refurbishment has been carried out over recent years and planning is in hand for the gallery to be converted into a fellowship room/vestry and the vestry into a kitchen and other facilities.

James Turner died, aged 44, at Peterhead in 1863 and 1,000s came to his funeral from Banffshire, Aberdeenshire and further afield. The memorial to him and his brother, George, who died later in the same year, is maintained by local Methodists in Old St Peter's cemetery, Peterhead. The Turner legacy was a long-lasting one: Moray Coast Methodism experienced a further period of revival in the 1920s, linked with the herring fishing industry of East Anglia and associated with David Cordiner and Jock Troup.

Methodism in Shetland - which has its own identity but strong links with Scotland - began with the return from the Napoleonic wars in 1819 of John Nicolson, who had been converted while in the army. He formed a "circuit" within two years and asked for Conference's help. As the result of Dr Adam Clarke's influence, who had oversight of the Shetlands Mission, this came in the form of John Raby and of Samuel Dunn, son of a Mevagissey sea-captain and erstwhile smuggler, who arrived in 1822. When he left in 1825 there were more than 600 members and, in spite of opposition from the Kirk, by the time of John Nicolson's death in 1828 there were four circuits and 1,000 members.

Shetland suffered heavy emigration but Methodism remained strong and in 1932 there were 1,398 members. By 1995 there were 379. As outlined in the account of the Ex-President of the Conference, the Rev Rev Inderjit Bhogal's visit, however (Recorder, June 14), Shetland today is home to a vibrant Methodist community, with a church built largely by volunteer labour opened in 1993 at Haroldswick, the most northerly church of any denomination in the British Isles, sited at the northern tip of the island of Unst, and others at Scalloway, Walls, East Yell, Lerwick and Fair Isle.

A rich and varied Methodist heritage, indeed.

The Recorder is grateful for material obtained from "Wesley in Scotland" by George W Davis (Wesley Historical Society Scottish branch); "Intractable Dr Memis of Aberdeen" (as above) and "Exploring Scotland with Wesley", both by Dr Margaret Batty; to the Rev Andrew Webb and Mrs Sarah Webb for "The Romance of Banffshire Methodism", written by Wesley F Swift in 1927; and Anne Johnson, for material on the Moray Coast churches.

Information

Arbroath - Octagonal chapel

Facilities: Toilets. No disabled facilities. No parking but coach access.

Address: Ponderlaw Street, Arbroath, Angus.

Further Details: Contact: Mr David Nicholl, 31 Newbigging Drive, Arbroath, Angus DD11 2HZ (tel: 01241 875172).

Dunbar - Church

Facilities: Toilets. No disabled facilities, access in church hall only. Nearby car parking. Coach access.

Address: 10 Victoria Street, Dunbar, East Lothian EH42 1ET (opposite the Leisure Pool). Further Details

Contact: the Rev Christopher J Mabb, 20 Bankpark Crescent, Tranent, Edinburgh EH33 1AS (tel: 01875 610388).

Edinburgh - Nicholson Square church

Facilities: Toilets. Disabled facilities. Cafe in Square Community centre below church. Car parking. Rooms to let to voluntary organisations. Ian Cunningham (tel: 0131 332 5311)

Address: St Margaret's Place, 25 Nicholson Square, Edinburgh EH8 9BX (Square centre, tel: 0131 662 0417).

Further Details: Contact: Christine A Stark, Ground Floor Flat West, 27 Eyre Place, Edinburgh EH3 5EX (tel: 0131 557 0529).