This church.
Leith North Church and Hall. 51–55 Madeira Street, Edinburgh.
In 2022, the Scottish Government apologised for the persecution of thousands under Scotland's Witchcraft Acts. The Church of Scotland followed. Both admitted wrongdoing. Neither has acted to repair the damage. This project is that action.
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A pointy hat. Black clothes. A cat and a broom.
That's the story. Here's the truth.
The people accused of witchcraft in Scotland were ordinary people. Women and men who made plant medicine (the basis of all modern medicine), who served as midwives and healers, who communities turned to when someone was ill or in trouble. They were part of daily life the same way a teacher or a doctor is today.
When those people wanted to be paid for their work, or fell out of favour with the Church or local authorities, it was easy to accuse them. The word witch was the weapon. Confessions were extracted through torture. Trials were conducted by the Church and the State together. The accused were hanged.
The Lasting Cost
When you remove the healers from a community, their knowledge of remedies, birth practices, and plant medicine dies with them. When you remove the midwives, maternal mortality climbs. When you remove the people who organise and speak, silence becomes the survival strategy for every woman who comes after.
The daughter of a healer who watched her mother hanged does not teach her daughter to heal. She teaches her daughter to hide.
This isn't ancient history. It's inherited silence. Each generation rebuilt from zero. Centuries of accumulated wisdom about medicine, community, agriculture, and conflict resolution. Not merely lost, but actively suppressed by the trauma of its destruction. The wound doesn't diminish over time. It compounds.
Witch is a slur for a capable woman.
The Record
The Unfinished Apology
Admission of wrongdoing. Acknowledgment of harm. And reparative action.
In 2022, the Scottish Government formally apologised for the witch trials. The Church of Scotland, which played a direct and documented role in identifying, trying, and condemning the accused, followed with its own apology.
Both fulfilled the first two obligations.
The third, reparative action, remains outstanding.
The Church holds hundreds of properties across Scotland. Many sit underused, expensive to maintain, and disconnected from the communities they were meant to serve. Membership has fallen from over 1.2 million to under 300,000. The buildings remain. The congregations do not.
We are asking the Church to take the third step. Not a plaque. Not a statement. A building. Returned to the community. Transformed from a symbol of the institution into a centre for the women it harmed.
This is not unprecedented. The Scottish Land Fund has already granted £900,000 to a community to acquire a church in Aberdeen. The mechanism exists. The precedent exists. What has been missing is the will.
A former church in the heart of Leith, at the centre of Edinburgh's regeneration. High ceilings. Traditional stone. Open structure built for gathering, reflection, teaching, and community use at scale. Currently available for acquisition at approximately £870,000.
The sale includes a separate hall building, providing capacity for administration, parallel programming, partnerships with aligned practitioners, and income generation through venue hire. This contributes directly to long-term financial sustainability.
What We Build in Its Place
A living reparation. A centre that restores the wisdom that was taken, built inside the kind of building that once helped take it.
Trauma-informed spaces that recognise the role of the nervous system in healing. Alternatives to purely medical or productivity-driven models of support.
Development programmes for women integrating emotional intelligence, relational capacity, and embodied self-trust. Beyond traditional corporate frameworks.
A gathering space for the wisdom that was suppressed. Herbalism, healing traditions, community organising. Held and taught by the women who carry it today.
A replicable model. Wherever histories of persecution and silencing exist, this approach can be adapted. Across the UK and internationally.
When women are supported to develop self-trust, emotional resilience, and relational capacity, the effects reach far beyond the individual. They shape how children are raised. How organisations are led. How communities function. Supporting women is not a niche intervention. It is a strategic one.
The Campaign
Help us secure a church in the heart of Edinburgh and turn four centuries of silence into a space where women lead again.
Reclaim the Church