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“It is the last place in all India at which it is necessary for the government to be put at the expense of building a church”, was what the British Governor-General of India, Lord Ellenborough (1842-1844) stated when the townspeople of Shimla (then spelt Simla) approached him for funds to build a church. The townspeople went back to their thatched hut, cold draughts and leaky roof that they had had since 1836 and continued building Christ Church on the town’s prominent Ridge. The government finally did give a loan to be paid out of pew rents and the church was consecrated on 10 January 1857 – and much to the dismay of the pious, the old place was sold to a tailor.

While the spires of Christ Church were up, it was a while before the other necessities as it were, came along. In the beginning there were no pews and the congregation made do with rough benches or brought their own chairs along. The porch was added later and the organ was shipped in from England. Lockwood Kipling, father of the celebrated Rudyard, designed the chancel window and had this executed by his students from the Mayo School of Art. Another gift was an elaborate screen, behind which the choir would emerge and then disappear. A young child took due note of this and asked her mother that if the church was God’s house, was the bit behind the screen his bathroom?

Even today, Christ Church tells the story of a part of the town’s rich history – and pews still mark the seats of the Viceroy, the Commander-in-Chief and the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, while the fascinating memorial tablets sound a roll call of the British Empire.

St. Michael’s Cathedral of the town’s Catholic community is built with a partial though elegant vocabulary of the French-Gothic style. The exterior is of dressed grey stone and the floor plan follows a cruciform. The interior was designed with a nave and two aisles, a vestry, a baptistry and a confessional. Over the high altar is a recently restored tapestry of glass that depicts a group of the crucifixion and a statue of Our Lady of Guadulupe, presented by the people of Mexico has also been installed in the church.

While Christ Church and St. Michael’s are Shimla’s most prominent churches, there are other minor luminaries too. Now a library, the Church of Scotland, St. Andrew’s stands in bare unpretentious brick. As a concession to its Spartan facade, decorative cornerstones lie embedded in its baked walls. The Church Missionary Society ran St. Thomas’ for the ‘natives’. Now in the shadow of its former glory, the All Saints Chapel lies in a corner of the sprawling estate of the former Viceregal Lodge. In the town’s wooded suburb of Mashobra, lies St. Crispin’s. The cantonment at Jutogh also has a small chapel, as do the Seventh Day Adventists in town - and similarly, many of the town’s educational institutions have well maintained chapels too.

A couple of hours drive from Shimla will take you to Himachal’s apple-growing heartland. In Kotgarh, lies the attractive wooden church of St. Mary – this was built in 1873 and still stands in a little nook surrounded by fruit-laden orchards. Again in Shimla’s neighbourhood, in time-locked Kasauli and its delightful ambience, there is a church right on its little Mall and another down in the cobbled bazaar. And within an arm’s reach of Kasauli, the settlements of Subathu and Dagshai have small old churches too.

Placed at the end of a long diagonal from Shimla, is the town of Dalhousie. Its 'old world' architecture has been garnished with four attractive churches. Quite oblivious to the bustle around it, St. John's lies comfortably ensconced at Gandhi Chowk. This is the oldest church in Dalhousie and its stone walls took the place of wooden planks after the Rev. Pratt visited the place in 1863 and exhorted the Christian community to build something more suitable. Shying away from the activity a few metres below, St. Francis' Church rests on a wooded rise above Subash Chowk. This was built in 1894. Services are conducted every Sunday at both.

Below town, at Balun, is Dalhousie's cantonment. Originally built to cater to the army, the churches of St. Patrick and St. Andrew were built in the first decade of the twentieth century. Not far from Dalhousie, is the town of Chamba that celebrates a millennium of its existence this year. Here, tucked in a little corner, is the Church of Scotland.

One of Himachal's most charming churches is at Dharamsala - just short of McLeodganj. The Church of St. John in the Wilderness lies in a sheltered grove of high cedars. Like a blessing over the valley, it has a commanding location on the hillside. Within its compound, is an obelisk erected in memory of the Viceroy, Lord Elgin (1862 - 1863 ) by his wife Mary.

There is another church of St. John in the Wilderness in the nearby town of Palampur – which is famous for its attractive countryside and tea gardens. And in a way, speaking worlds for the churches of Himachal, their stained glass windows, miles away from where they were made and the memorials of people that died in events long forgotten, this has an unusual setting created by a rare climate and is surrounded by a clutch of warm weather poinsettias and shaded by tall Himalayan cedars that belong to the snows.

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