Browse Items (515 total)

Since the sixteenth century there had been no cardinals resident in Scotland. However, in 1969 Gordon Gray, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, was made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

In the late 1960s the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland agreed that women could be ordained as ministers on the same terms as men. The first woman to serve as a Church of Scotland minister in Fife was Mary Morrison, who began her ministry at…

St Andrews was an important religious centre from an early date. There seems to have already been a monastery here in 747 when the death of the abbot Tuathalán was recorded. The spectacular stone monument known as the St Andrews sarcophagus probably…

The seventh and eighth centuries saw increasing conversion of the Picts (who then inhabited Fife and much of Scotland north of the Forth). Missionaries seem to have come from the island of Iona in the west, and from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of…

Silver from the Traprain Law Treasure, East Lothian, Scotland. Bowls of river spoons.

The earliest evidence for Christianity in Fife comes from Christian symbols on carved stones and in caves. Early examples include the carvings on the Skeith Stone (which was found near Kilrenny) and cross markings at Caiplie Caves. These carvings…

Christianity was introduced to Southern Scotland during the Roman occupation of Britain. It is possible that some Christian communities survived the departure of the Romans and the subsequent period of migration and political change.

In May 1930 Dysart House, first built in 1756, was sold to Mrs Elsa af Wetterstedt Mitchell, and a month later she gifted it to the trustees for the Sisters of the Carmelite Community. They established a closed community with room for 24 nuns. The…

Following the Great Disruption in 1843, the minister of Dysart, John Thomson, and a large part of the congregation joined the Free Church. Their first church was opened the following year (1844) on the corner of West Quality Street and Fitzroy…

In 1802-03 a new parish church was constructed in Dysart and the congregation moved from St Serf’s in an event known locally as the year of the big flittin. Known as the Barony Church and capable of sitting 1600 people, it was located to the north of…

The Anti-Burgher Congregation in Dysart was formed in 1747. In the early years they met in an old barn before constructing their own church in 1763 at a cost of £100. It was capable of sitting 795. It was located in Pathhead, which, although now in…

A congregation belonging to the Relief Church was founded in Dysart sometime in the 1760s. In 1772 they opened their own church, which later became known as the Auld House, in a former malt barn on Relief Street. It cost £600 and was capable of…

A chapel dedicated to St Denis/Denys, one of the patron saints of France, is thought to have been located at Pan Ha' in Dysart. Writing in 1794, George Muirhead noted the local tradition that the chapel had been part of a Dominican Friary. Cowan and…

The church of St Serf in Dysart first appears in the documentary record in the 1220s, although it is clear that it had existed long before then. In the fifteenth century, it was expanded into a large and impressive structure, including the…

St Serf’s Cave in Dysart has been connected to that important local saint since the early middle ages. Serf had dedications across Western Fife, Kinross and Clackmannanshire, and his relics could be found in Culross. The main source of information on…

The priory of May was founded by David I, sometime around the year 1140. It was dedicated to St Ethernan, and was affiliated to a mother house located at Reading in Berkshire. The monks were initially Cluniacs, followers of a reformed and stricter…

The Isle of May was an important early Christian site which included a chapel and shrine from at least the ninth century, and probably earlier. The chapel, as well as a monastic site at Kilrenny and the Caiplie Caves are connected to two saints,…

The parish church of Cellardyke was constructed in 1882. Two years earlier the arrival of a new minister at the parish church of Kilrenny led to a split in the congregation, with the fisherfolk of Cellardyke joining the Free Church and forming their…

Following the Great Disruption in 1843, the minister of Anstruther Easter, William Ferrie, joined the Free Church, taking around 300 of his congregation with him. They built a small church in 1844 on a site in Hadfoot Wynd. In 1858 a larger,…

The Congregationalist Church in Anstruther was formed in around 1800, following preaching in the town by James Haldane and Joseph Rate in 1798. They met initially at 28 East Green, a weaver's shop owned by a Mr Thaw, known locally as the Tabernacle…

The church was formed following a visit to the town by James Haldane in 1812, and meetings were held thereafter in the building known as the Tabernacle. In 1839 the congregation split into two sects (Baptists and Paedo-Baptists), who shared the…

In 1818 applied to join the In 1820 the Burgher Presbytery of Perth granted a group called the Managers of the Associate Society of Anstruther £20 to construct a church in the Backdykes area of Anstruther Easter. They had between 40 and 50 members…

In 1641 Anstruther Easter was separated from Kilrenny and became the smallest parish by area in Scotland at the time. Construction of a church begun in 1634, and it was ready for use by 1641, with a steeple and bell added in 1644. In a tribute to the…

Anstruther Easter was part of the parish of Kilrenny until 1634, but by the later middle ages it was home to a growing fishing community. At some time in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries, a chapel-at-ease was constructed to serve…

The parish church of Anstruther Wester is first documented in 1225 when it was under the patronage of the monks of Isle of May. Dedicated to St Nicholas, patron saint of seafarers, by the later middle ages, the church was a large and complex…

The Caves of Caiplie, or the Coves as they are known locally, are found about 3 miles to the east of Anstruther. They are natural caves carved in the rock face by sea action, which in places have been artificially enlarged. They have been long…

Until the late nineteenth century the people of North Queensferry worshipped in Inverkeithing or Dunfermline. The first parish church was built in the village in 1878, belonging to the Free Church. The congregation joined the United Free Church in…

In 1855 Robert Robertson, a local linen merchant, purchased a former inn and converted it into a Meeting House for the villagers of North Queensferry. The name evolved from Meeting House, to Preaching Station and eventually the Mission Hall. It…

The chapel of St James first enters the documentary record in the early fourteenth century, but it was likely to have been founded sometime in the late twelfth or thirteenth centuries. It was a key station on probably the most important and well used…

In 1913, nearly four centuries after the Protestant Reformation, a Roman Catholic congregation returned to Inverkeithing area with the foundation of the Church of St Peter-in-Chains in Jamestown. The development of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Rosyth…

In the early 1900s a revival moment swept through Fife and led to the formation Inverkeithing’s Baptist Church. A mission was first planted in the town in 1903, and following its success, particularly among quarry workers, a Church was founded in…

In 1899 the bishop of St Andrews, Dunblane and Dunkeld was successfully petitioned for the foundation of an episcopal mission church in Inverkeithing to cater to the community in nearby Jamestown. In 1902 a site in Witch Knowe Park was purchased from…

St John’s was founded in 1752 following a split within the congregation of St Peter’s parish church over the choice of a minister by right of patronage. 127 parishioners left the Church of Scotland, acquired a yard with houses on the north side of…

A Franciscan Friary was founded in Inverkeithing in the fourteenth century. The Greyfriars, as they were known from the colour of their cowls, were a significant presence in the burgh, with their buildings and gardens stretching from Queen Street…

The parish church of St Peter is first documented in the twelfth century and by the later middle ages it was a large and impressive building containing eight separate altars dedicated to different saints. An elaborately carved baptismal font dating…

The chapel of Inverkeithing is first mentioned in the 1150s when it belonged to Abbey of Dunfermline. While it has been suggested that this chapel later became the parish church, the source notes that it was located outside of the burgh, so it is…

Local tradition records that Christianity was brought to Inverkeithing in around 500AD by a holy man called St Erat. An ancient well known as Heriot’s or Erat’s, after which nearby Heriot Street is also named, can be found close to the site of the…

St Leonard’s Chapel has a long and varied history. The Culdees may have had a pilgrim hospital on this site in the Early Middle Ages. In the 1140s the hospital and its property were given to the newly founded St Andrews Cathedral Priory. An…

Following the Reformation the authorities in St Andrews (like many other Scottish towns) prosecuted Roman Catholics. This meant that for several centuries there was no official Catholic congregation in St Andrews. As religious toleration increased in…

During the late Middle Ages a chapel dedicated to St Anna (the grandmother of Jesus) stood on the north side of North Street. St Anna’s Chapel was probably a chantry – an institution where one or more priests regularly prayed for the souls of the…

St Andrew’s Church was built to replace a smaller Episcopal church (also dedicated to St Andrew) which once stood on North Street. The foundations for the new church were laid in 1867, and the church was consecrated (in other words officially blessed…

In 1690 Scotland officially became a Presbyterian country, rejecting episcopacy (or the government of the church by bishops). Some Scots did not accept the changes, forming the origins of the Scottish Episcopal Church. There have been Episcopalians…

The Salvation Army started a corps in St Andrews in 1893. After some difficulties in the early years, there was a continuous Salvation Army presence in St Andrews from 1934 until 2003. During the 1980s the Salvation Army acquired a former house on…

The first version of Martyrs’ Church was built in the 1840s by a Free Church congregation (one of the groups that broke away from the Church of Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century). The congregation rapidly expanded, and in 1851 the building was…

Hope Park was built in the 1860s for the United Presbyterians, who had previously been worshipping in a house on North Street. The church was designed by the architects Peddie and Kinnear. The new church was originally towards the western edge of St…

Since the early fifteenth century Holy Trinity Church has been located on South Street. The current site was given by Sir William Lindsay of the Byres for the citizens of St Andrews to build ‘a church in honour of the Holy Trinity with a row of…

The area now called Hallow Hill was once known as Eglesnamin. This name also has religious associations, with 'egles' appearing to be a Pictish word for a church. Hallow Hill may in fact be one of the oldest religious sites in St Andrews. There was…

The parish of Holy Trinity is first recorded in the 1140s, when Bishop Robert was reorganising religious life in St Andrews. For centuries Holy Trinity was the main church for the residents of St Andrews. The church was originally located within the…

The original parish church of Holy Trinity was probably a little to the north of St Rule’s, in the area towards the centre and right side of this photograph. (Source: Bess Rhodes)

During the late Middle Ages an Observant Franciscan friary was located on a large plot of land between Market Street and North Street (where Greyfriars Garden now stands). The friary was founded by Bishop Kennedy in the mid-fifteenth century. The…

The Gospel Hall is in a former shop on the narrow section of Market Street. Christian Brethren (traditionally sometimes called Plymouth Brethren) have worshipped here since at least 1914. During the early twentieth century the Plymouth Brethren had a…