Browse Items (515 total)

Arthropleura tracks near St Andrews, a cast of them can be seen in MUSA, the Scores, St Andrews

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…

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…

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 /ˈænstrəðər/ (Locally Ainster /ˈɛnstər/ Scottish Gaelic: Ànsruthair) is a small coastal resort town in Fife, Scotland, situated on the north-shore of the Firth of Forth[7] and 9 mi (14 km) south-southeast of St Andrews. The town comprises…

All Saints’ Church originally served the St Andrews fishing community (which was traditionally focused around the east end of town). In 1903 a small iron mission church was established, and in 1907 a stone chancel was added. Following the First World…

A walking trail to see the geology of Aberdour.

Shortly after the Great Disruption in 1843, a Free Church congregation was founded in Aberdour. They opened a church, called St Colme’s, in 1845, close to the location of the old parish church. By 1848 it had a congregation of 318. In 1900 it became…

The location of the church so close to their country seat at Aberdour Castle had been a point of contention for the Douglas family for some time, and in 1790 they successfully closed St Fillan’s and opened a new church in Wester Aberdour. It was…

At Aberdour the country rock (carboniferous sandstone) has been intruded by younger magma. There are also good examples of faulting and cross bedding.

Aberdour (/ˌæbərˈdaʊər/ (About this soundlisten); Scots: Aiberdour,[2] Scottish Gaelic: Obar Dobhair) is a scenic and historic village on the south coast of Fife, Scotland. It is on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, looking south to the island…

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 abbey benefited from income from the parish, and in exchange appointed a vicar who was meant to take…

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 were James Milne and William Burn. In the 1830s the new church was described by the minister of Abdie…

The Abbey of Culross was founded in 1217 by Maol Choluim I, Earl of Fife (1204–1228), who was himself buried in the church in 1228x1229. Dedicated to St Mary and St Serf, it housed monks of the Cistercian order, a reformed order founded in the late…

By the tenth century St Andrews had become one of the most important churches in the kingdom of the Scots. In 965 the brother of the King of Tara died while on pilgrimage to St Andrews. This incident is the earliest evidence for St Andrews as a place…

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…

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…

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.

The Second Vatican Council (held in the Vatican in Rome) sought to modernise Roman Catholicism. It agreed major changes to Roman Catholic worship. One of the most notable alterations was ending the use of Latin for ordinary services. The interiors of…

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Presbyterian opposition to Christmas reduced. In 1958 Christmas became a public holiday in Scotland. Increasingly Fife’s Church of Scotland congregations held special services for Christmas Day.

During the Second World War the armed forces expanded and many people moved around the country. New places of worship were established in Fife for service personnel from Britain and overseas. A significant number of Polish troops were stationed in…

At a joint assembly in Edinburgh the United Free Church agreed to merge with the Church of Scotland. This meant that many places in Fife now had multiple Church of Scotland congregations. Some continued as independent congregations, but others…

After centuries of the controversy about the relationship between church and state, the British Parliament passed the Church of Scotland Act. This gave the Church of Scotland freedom to decide spiritual matters and church appointments without…

Thousands of Fife residents served in the armed forces during the First World War. Many were killed. After the war communities across Fife put up memorials to the dead. These war memorials are frequently located in churches. Others are free-standing,…

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had seen several groups leave the Church of Scotland. In 1900 two of the largest of these break-away denominations joined together. Following several years of negotiations, the majority of members of the Free…

For several centuries the University of St Andrews had not celebrated Christmas. However, in 1887 the university decided to have a communal Christmas dinner at St Mary’s College. The menu included hare soup, roast beef, and plum pudding.

As discrimination against Roman Catholics reduced, the Papacy decided to re-establish a traditional church hierarchy in Scotland. Six Roman Catholic dioceses were created. Except for Glasgow, all the new dioceses were subject to the Archbishop of St…

Since the early 1700s the role of lay patrons in church appointments had been a major cause of discontent in the Church of Scotland, and had triggered several splits in the church. In 1874 the British Parliament agreed that Church of Scotland…

For some decades there had been debates about the fact that clergy ordained by Scottish Episcopal bishops could not legally be appointed to positions in the Church of England. In 1864 this ban was overturned, ending official government discrimination…

While the Church of Scotland was splitting again, some groups of seceders were joining together. In 1847 the United Secession Church and the Relief Church combined to form the United Presbyterian Church. The United Presbyterians had considerable…

For more than a century there had been divisions in the Church of Scotland over how appointments were made and the relationship between church and state. A series of legal cases in the 1830s worsened relations between the growing evangelical wing of…

In 1829 the British Parliament passed legislation lifting most restrictions on Roman Catholics. Among other new freedoms, Roman Catholics were now allowed to vote and become members of Parliament. Over the course of the nineteenth century the Roman…

After more than seventy years of disagreement (largely focusing on the relationship between church and state) most members of the Burgher Church resolved their differences with the Anti-Burghers. They joined together as the new United Secession…

After more than seventy years of disagreement (largely focusing on the relationship between church and state) most members of the Burgher Church resolved their differences with the Anti-Burghers. They joined together as the new United Secession…

In the early 1790s the British Parliament decided to resolve the status of Roman Catholics in Scotland. More than a decade after the harshest restrictions had been lifted on Catholics in the rest of the United Kingdom, it was agreed that Roman…

Following the death of Charles Edward Stuart, the leaders of the Scottish Episcopal Church agreed to support George III. After some argument, the British Parliament removed most of the legal restrictions on Episcopalians in Scotland. Episcopal…

Since the Reformation the Scottish government had banned Roman Catholic worship. In 1778 the British Parliament tried to reduce the restrictions on Roman Catholics. The proposed act caused major protests in Scotland. As a result of the popular…

During the 1750s and 1760s a dispute over the appointment of a new minister at Inverkeithing led to another split in the Church of Scotland. A group of ministers who objected to outside interference in parish appointments set up the new Relief…

The new Secession Church had a number of internal divisions which came to a head in the late 1740s. A particular area of disagreement concerned whether Seceders could take an oath to support the religion ‘presently professed in the country’. This…

Following the failed rebellion of 1745 and 1746 checks on Episcopalians increased. Episcopal ministers who failed to take an oath of loyalty were forbidden to lead services for more than four people. Episcopalians were also not allowed to be public…

In August 1745 Charles Edward Stuart (sometimes called the Young Pretender) landed on the West Coast of Scotland. His arrival triggered a far-reaching rebellion in support of the Stuart claim to the throne. In comparison to many other parts of…

Disagreements about the appointment of ministers and the role of powerful landowners as patrons led to a split in the Church of Scotland. A small group of ministers who wished for congregations to have greater control over church appointments broke…

During the 1720s the popular preacher John Glas (a graduate of the University of St Andrews and minister at Tealing near Dundee) put forward a series of radical ideas including condemning the idea of a national church and regarding communion as a…

After the Jacobite rising of 1715 the British government became increasingly suspicious of Scottish Episcopalians. Ministers in the Scottish Episcopal Church were required to take an oath renouncing the Stuart claim to the throne and promising to…

The accession of George I to the British throne was soon followed by a rebellion backing James Francis Edward Stuart’s claim to be king instead. James (also known as the Old Pretender) was a Roman Catholic, but he received support from many Scottish…

When Presbyterianism was re-established in 1690 the Scottish Parliament also passed legislation banning Christmas. In 1712 this ban was lifted and the British Parliament legalised keeping Christmas in Scotland. However, most Presbyterians remained…

The British government was initially more tolerant of Episcopalians than the Scottish Parliament had been. In 1711 the laws against Episcopal marriages and baptisms were removed and new legislation ordered that Episcopalians were not to be disturbed…

Lobbying from Scottish aristocrats led to the passing of the Church Patronage Act. This stated that the old patrons of Scottish parishes (typically large landowners) could influence the appointment of Church of Scotland ministers. The move was deeply…

After much debate, the parliaments of Scotland and England passed legislation to create a new Kingdom of Great Britain. The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh closed. Until the twentieth century legislation on Scottish religious affairs became the…

Many of Fife’s Episcopal clergymen were removed from their parishes by the restoration of Presbyterianism. In 1695 the Scottish Parliament passed a law forbidding displaced Episcopal clergy from performing marriages or baptisms under pain of…

In 1689 King James VII was replaced as ruler of Scotland by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. Soon afterwards the Scottish Parliament (which had backed William and Mary) passed an act abolishing the authority of bishops. In 1690…

Archbishop James Sharp was a divisive religious leader. Many Presbyterians felt that he had sold out the Church of Scotland by agreeing to become archbishop of St Andrews. Sharp rigorously enforced the religious changes imposed by Charles II and…

In 1660 the English invited Charles II to return as king. Shortly afterwards Charles set about overturning the religious changes of the previous decades. In 1661 the Scottish Parliament passed the Rescissory Act which got rid of all the laws passed…

In 1639 Scotland slipped into religious war. Supporters of the National Covenant (sometimes known as Covenanters) took up arms in defence of their beliefs. The response of Charles I to this crisis led to civil war across his three kingdoms – namely…

The 1630s saw growing tensions about religion in Scotland. At this time King Charles I tried to bring the Church of Scotland more in line with English practices. Charles firmly supported the role of bishops and wanted more elaborate services. In 1637…

As he grew older King James VI became opposed to the relatively democratic government of the Church of Scotland. He had bitter disputes with what he termed the ‘fiery ministers’ of the General Assembly. The king believed that Presbyterianism led to…

Reading the Bible formed a vital part of Protestant religious activity. In particular Protestants believed that people should have access to the Bible in their native language. Yet there were significant problems with many of the early translations…

The later decades of the sixteenth century saw ongoing tensions about how radical the Church of Scotland should be. Many of these arguments became focused around the question of church government. In 1592 the Scottish Parliament abolished the role of…

By the 1570s the Church of Scotland was adopting an increasingly hard line on religious festivals. In particular there was a campaign against celebrating Christmas (or Yule as it was often known in Scotland). At the beginning of 1574 the St Andrews…

For many years there were bitter debates about how the new Protestant Church of Scotland should be governed. In the 1560s each region had a superintendent who oversaw religious affairs and reported back to the General Assembly (an annual meeting of…

In the spring and summer of 1559 Protestant activists set out to ‘reform’ Roman Catholic churches. Influenced by strict Calvinist ideas on the wickedness of ‘idols’, they smashed statues, removed altars, and burned religious books. Once churches had…

In the spring of 1546 the Roman Catholic archbishop of St Andrews, Cardinal David Beaton, was assassinated by a group of Fife lairds who opposed his religious and political policies. The murderers gained access to Beaton’s residence at St Andrews…

The 1540s saw fighting between Scotland and England. The conflict was partly driven by the English government’s wish to arrange a marriage between Edward VI and the young Mary Queen of Scots (which is why this period is sometimes called the Rough…