How it came to be...

In 1931, Father John McQuillan founded a Catholic Land Colony at Broadfield Farm, Symington, three miles from Biggar and placed it under the patronage of St.Isidore the Farmer. When this courageous initiative was discontinued in 1937, a priest was appointed to be resident in Biggar itself. The first Mass was celebrated in the present premises on Pentecost Sunday, the 16th of May 1937. The 'church' consists of the original two front rooms of the house which was built in 1880 for Doctor Kello, a prominent figure in the town, our local Kello Hospital being named after him. The church was extended in 1993 to include what had been a conservatory and now seats approximately 100 people.

Smallest population - Biggest parish

The parish has the smallest Catholic population of all the parishes in the Diocese of Motherwell; yet it is the largest in area. It covers more than 300 square miles, 40% of the Diocese, and is much larger than the whole Diocese of Paisley. If parish means community, it is really a multitude of parishes - there are more than twenty primary schools, each of which may have one or two Catholic pupils. If parish means churches, then it is really two parishes. One half of the Catholic population lives in the villages and countryside around Biggar, with only a small nucleus in the town itself. The other half live in the Forth area where there is a small chapel, where Mass is celebrated on a Sunday.

Biggar's boundaries

The southern part of the parish runs from Leadhills and Elvanfoot, some twenty miles south of Biggar, to Dunsyre and Dolphinton in the north. St.Isidore's is also used by Catholics living in Tweedsmuir, technically in the parish of Peebles. It is a convenient mass-centre for those as far north-east as Blyth Bridge, Romanno Bridge and West Linton, all in the Archdiocese of St.Andrews and Edinburgh.

Parish History - Early post-reformation

The Reverend John Black, a native of Glasgow, was ordained priest in 1848 for the Western District of Scotland. A year later he was sent as the first resident priest in Lanark. The Scottish Catholic Directory reports: "Mr(for the title 'Father' was still not correct) Black gives spiritual assistance to all the Catholics residing at Shotts, Carluke, Carstairs, Biggar and to those scattered over the whole of the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire". Later the Directory adds to that list Newmains, Cambus Wallace and Auchengray. Although the Directory does not mention Fauldhouse it is well established that Mr Black was the first priest in the post-reformation period to celebrate Mass in Fauldhouse as he was also the first recorded priest to do so in Biggar.The centenary brochure of St.John the Baptist's, Fauldhouse gives a picture of this apostolic priest who, it is said, thought nothing of walking 20miles a day carrying two cases, one with a change of personal clothing and the other with the requirements for Mass. From then Mass was celebrated regularly, if often infrequently in both sections of the parish.

In the years immediately preceding 1890, Mass was provided in both Wilsontown and Tarbrax from the recently established parish in Shotts. It is then reported that "the Catholics have migrated elsewhere and there is no Mass".

Read more on the History of St.Isidore's Catholic Church