Browse Items (515 total)
The building now occupied by Newburgh Flooring is widely believed to have once been a church. In reality for much of its history it appears to have…
The west end of the former Livingstone Hall. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)On the east side of Clinton Street stands Newburgh’s United Reformed Church. This building has a complicated denominational history. In the early…
The United Reform Church on Clinton Street. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)There were some Episcopalian families in Newburgh in the eighteenth century. However, they do not appear to have had an official place of worship. In…
The site once occupied by St Katherine’s Episcopal Mission Church. The stone wall and iron gates are all that remain from the former church. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)For several centuries St Katherine’s Church (which was formerly located on the north side of the High Street) served as Newburgh’s parish church. The…
The impressive street frontage of St Katherine’s Parish Church in the mid-twentieth century. (Source: Newburgh Ancestry and History Society)Newburgh Parish Church was built in the early 1900s. It originally served as the United Free Church. The building was designed by the Dundee…
Gothic revival carving above the main entrance to Newburgh Parish Church. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)Lindores Abbey was founded in the late twelfth century by David, Earl of Huntingdon. The earl had recently fought in the Third Crusade and established…
Ruins of Lindores Abbey. This photograph looks across what would once have been the cloister. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)A Burgher Church was built on the west side of Clinton Street in the 1780s. The Burghers were a break-away movement from the Church of Scotland and…
The former burgher chapel in Newburgh. The building now provides holiday accommodation. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)The Baptist Chapel on the north side of the High Street in Newburgh was built in the early 1880s. It replaced an earlier chapel on a wynd on the south…
The former Baptist church on the north side of the High Street in Newburgh. This building was in use as a place of worship until the 2010s. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)In 1808 a Baptist chapel was founded in Newburgh. The congregation was established by Archibald McLean, who was leading figure in the Scotch Baptists…
The site of the old Baptist chapel in Newburgh. (Source: 1855 Ordnance Survey Map of Fife, sheet 4. Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/74426821)The hill known as Mares Craig was for many years a stone quarry. In the 1920s a Celtic handbell, of the type associated with early medieval religious…
The site of the Mares Craig quarry in the early twentieth century. (Source: 1920 Ordnance Survey map of Fife and Kinross, Sheet VI.SE. Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/75530896).Abdie and Dunbog Parish Church opened its doors in 1827. It was built to replace Abdie’s medieval parish church. The architects for the new building…
Abdie and Dunbog Parish Church (Bess Rhodes).There has been a parish church at Abdie since at least the 1190s. For most of the Middle Ages the rectorship of Abdie was held by Lindores Abbey. The…
Abdie Old Parish Church (Bess Rhodes).
St Andrew’s Church, Buckhaven (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Font of St Michael’s Church, Buckhaven (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buckhaven (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Salvation Army (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Parish Church (formerly St Davids) (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Church of God (Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Baptist Church (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)The Buckhaven Church of God was formed as a breakaway from the Open Brethren in 1986. They are an evangelical organisation part of the global…
Buckhaven Church of God (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007).Jehovah’s Witnesses were first established in Buckhaven in 1971, moving into a building constructed c.1900 and previously occupied by a group known as…
Buckhaven Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)The Buckhaven Christian Fellowship moved into the building on Institution Street in 1969. It had formerly been a United Free Church constructed in…
A corps of the Salvation Army was first launched in Buckhaven in 1897, fell into abeyance and but was re-founded in 1936. They met in Mullin Hall…
Salvation Army (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)Buckhaven’s Baptist Church was formed in the early 1900s as part of a wider revival moment in Fife. The earliest mission began in November of 1908,…
Buckhaven Baptist Church (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)In 1901 a Church of Scotland ‘chapel at ease’ was established to serve the inhabitants of Buckhaven. Constructed in St Michael’s Street, it became a…
After the Great Disruption of 1843, adherents of the Free Church in Buckhaven initially attended the church in East Wemyss, before the decision was…
St Andrew’s Church, Buckhaven (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)By 1869, the congregation of the United Presbyterian Church on Buckhaven Links took the decision to construct a new, larger, place of worship on…
Buckhaven and Wemyss Parish Church (Source: Presbytery of Kirkcaldy, 2021)In 1739 a Buckhaven resident and one of the elders of Wemyss Parish Church, Mr John Thomson, seceded from the Church of Scotland with a number of…
Site of Buckhaven Links Church (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)At the Great Disruption in 1843 a large group of the congregation of East Wemyss parish church broke away and joined the Free Church. They began…
St George’s Church, East Wemyss (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)A Church of Scotland ‘chapel at ease’ was built in what is now Church Street in West Wemyss in 1835. It was intended to save the villagers the long…
St_Adrian_s_West_Wemyss.jpgSt Mary’s Chapel in West Wemyss was connected to the parish church in East Wemyss, as a dispute of 1527-28 noted that offerings at the chapel should…
St_Mary_s_Chapel_west_wemyss.jpgThe parish church of St Mary in East Wemyss, first recorded c.1230, belonged successively to the Hospital of Soutra and the Church of the Holy Trinity…
St Mary’s By the Sea (Source: Richard Fawcett 2012)In 1952 Alexander Smith listed a number what he described as Other religious bodies in Methil, including a Gospel Hall, the Central Gospel Mission and…
In 1952 Alexander Smith listed a number what he described as Other religious bodies in Methil, including a Gospel Hall, the Central Gospel Mission and…
In 1952 Alexander Smith listed a number what he described as Other religious bodies in Methil, including a Gospel Hall, the Central Gospel Mission and…
Shortly after the start of World War II a small chapel was built in Methil Docks to cater to the dock personnel and those involved in war production…
Methil Evangelical Church (Source; Bess Rhodes)In 1931, some 300 years after the closure of the parish church in Methilhill, a new Church of Scotland parish church was constructed on Chemiss Road,…
Methil and Denbeath Parish Church (Source: Bess Rhodes)In the early 1920s the steady growth of the population of the town led the Church of Scotland to construct a new parish church in Methil to replace…
Wellesley Parish Church, Methil (Source: Bess Rhodes)Nearly four centuries after the Protestant Reformation, a Roman Catholic congregation returned to Methil with the opening of a church in 1903. Located…
St Agatha’s Roman Catholic Church, Methil (Source: Bess Rhodes)As a result of the large numbers of German sailors visiting Methil annually in the late nineteenth century a missionary from the German Church in…
German Seaman’s Mission (Source: Vintage Lundin Links and Largo).Following the Great Disruption in 1843, a quod sacra Free Church parish was set up in Methil, before a full mission was established in 1852. The…
The Scottish Coastal Mission, founded in 1850, was a Protestant organisation dedicated to ministering to sailors and maritime communities. By 1861…
Scottish Coast Mission (Source: Places of Worship in Scotland)From the early 1600s to 1838 Methil was part of the parish of Wemyss and the congregation attended the church in Easter Wemyss. Following an increase…
The church of the medieval parish of Methil (spelt Methilkil or Methilhill) was located inland, on the banks of the River Leven about a mile and a…
Methil Hill Cemetery (Source: Bess Rhodes 2021)On the coast a little way north of the burgh of Crail (near Crail Airfield) is land known as Kilminning. This name is thought to derive from the…
The coast at Kilminning. Remains of what may have been an early chapel have been discovered in this area. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)Towards the end of the 1840s the Free Church congregation in Crail built a church on the road then known as Jockeys Port (now called St Andrews Road).…
The west gable of Crail Community Hall – formerly St David’s Church. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)The early nineteenth century saw major divisions in the Church of Scotland over secular interference in religious affairs. In the 1840s a large number…
Houses on Rose Wynd in 2021. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
The site of the supposed ‘nunnery’ on Nethergate – perhaps in reality a medieval chapel. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)A plot of land on the south side of the Nethergate in Crail has long been known as ‘The Nunnery’. However, written records suggest that there was at…
The site of the supposed ‘nunnery’ on Nethergate – perhaps in reality a medieval chapel. (Source: 1855 Ordnance Survey Map of Fife, sheet 20. Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/74426837)By the late eighteenth century there was a tradition in Crail that there had once been a medieval priory by the sea, a little to the south of what is…
The site of the supposed ‘priory’ ruins. (Source: 1895 Ordnance Survey Map of Fife and Kinross, sheet XXIII. Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/75533145)The site now occupied by Holy Trinity Church has been a place of worship for several different denominations. A church was built here in the 1790s for…
Holy Trinity Church in 2021. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)When the Church of Scotland adopted Presbyterianism at the start of the 1690s a number of ministers refused to support the change. The minister of…
Bankhead Brae in Crail. An Episcopal chapel was located in this area during the early eighteenth century. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)The parish church at Crail has been a place of worship since at least the twelfth century. During the reign of Malcolm IV (who died in 1165) revenues…
Crail Parish Church in 2021. Marks from the changing rooflines of the church over the centuries can be seen on the tower and end wall of the nave. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)There appears to have been a castle at Crail by the middle of the twelfth century. In 1359 the castle chapel is described as being dedicated to St…
A section of old masonry which perhaps formed part of Crail Castle. (Source: William Jack / University of St Andrews Library, WMJ-EN-115-2.)During the First World War an airfield was built at Crail, but the site was abandoned following the end of hostilities. At the start of the Second…
A naval inspection at Crail Airfield in the early 1940s. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, GMC-5-16-17.)The United Secession Church had its origins in the splits within the Church of Scotland in the eighteenth century. The congregation worshipped for…
The former United Secession Church on North Street. (Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)St Salvator’s College was established in the 1450s by Bishop James Kennedy. The new university college was dedicated to Christ the Saviour, and was…
St Salvator’s Chapel in about 1767. Some of the original windows have been partly blocked up, others are covered with shutters. The medieval stone roof can still be seen. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, OLI-11.)The building now known as St Rule’s Church originally served as St Andrews Cathedral. The church was probably built on the orders of Bishop Robert…