Described as the first permanent church between the Zambezi and the Nile, this church was designed by David Scott, a Scottish missionary, with help of local workers. Scott had no architectural or building experience at all and there were no written plans. This was just as well as The Church of Scotland would have stopped his plans had they known how ambitious they were. He was also writing a language dictionary at the time of building. This also is where Blantyre was founded when a local chief gave land to the Scottish missionaries and a slave freed by David Livingstone.