In preparation for the building of the New Sanctuary several of the old temporary buildings had to be demolished.

In the first two decades of the Community’s development at The Park, the members were residents of the Caravan Park owned by Captain Gibson. This meant they were not able to build permanent buildings and so they had to build temporary ones, basically wooden sheds or garages, to cater for the needs of the growing community – places to meet, to meditated, to celebrate, to print the publications, to eat etc.

Britta Schmitz captured the demolition of one of those in a Facebook live-stream and several Community members commented on what had been going on in that shed over the decades.

We hope that this post will help to us stitch together how this particular building as served the Community over the decades. Please tell us your stories, alternatively you can leave a note in Comments below.

From the comments in the live-stream and in the One Incredible Family Facebook group, we have learned so far some basics. There were two parts to the building, so some of those functions may have happened at the same time.

  • the first Community Centre (Jonathan Caddy in the video)
  • a type-setting shed (Mary Inglis) – before type-setting moved to Pineridge, and later to the Pubs building
  • Bookstore (Mary Inglis)
  • Visuals (Charles Petersen) in the late 1970s
  • Computer work (Charles working with François)
  • Holistic Health Centre Office (Cornelia Featherstone – early 1990s to 1998) – in the front office
  • Park Campus team – in both offices

From the same Facebook conversations we gleaned some facts of another of the sheds, the one to the left of the Sanctuary.

  • Carly Newfeld remembers that it initially was Peter Caddy’s garage before becoming his office.
  • in the 1980s and 90s it was the Accounts and Finance office before becoming
  • the Educations Office, including Outreach.

That building was partially destroyed by the Sanctuary Fire on April 11th, 2021.

The development of the New Sanctuary will reshape this whole area and we look forward to it all coming together.

We thank the Findhorn Foundation for the use of this video on our website. You can watch more Findhorn Foundation videos here.

You can watch more videos on our website by clicking on the tag ‘videos’, also on the top of this page, or by going to our YouTube channel.