Holy Trinity Church, South Street, St Andrews

Holy Trinity Church, South Street, St Andrews

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 pillars on each side of the nave’. During the late Middle Ages Holy Trinity was the focus for pious donations by St Andrews residents, and at the time of the Reformation it was served by about thirty priests. As the burgh church of St Andrews Holy Trinity was at the heart of the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. During the siege of St Andrews Castle in 1546 and 1547 it was the scene of competing sermons by Catholic and Protestant preachers – including a young John Knox. In June 1559 Knox returned to Holy Trinity and delivered a fateful sermon which encouraged the St Andrews burgh council to reject Catholicism and establish a Protestant city. Holy Trinity then became a focal point for religious reform, playing a key role in the establishment of new patterns of religious administration and discipline. In the seventeenth century, when the archbishopric of St Andrews was restored, Holy Trinity became for a brief period a cathedral. The monument to Archbishop Sharp on the south side of the church forms a reminder of this period of the church’s history. Over the centuries Holy Trinity has undergone several redesigns, including at the Reformation, at the start of the nineteenth century, and at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, several elements of the medieval church still exist. The high tower and spire of Holy Trinity have changed little since the Middle Ages. Some of the original pillars requested by Sir William Lindsay also survive.

sacredlandscapesoffife

Bess Rhodes

Site

69

21/05/2021

(1) W.E.K. Rankin, The Parish Church of the Holy Trinity St Andrews: Pre-Reformation (Edinburgh, 1955). (2) Bess Rhodes, Riches and Reform: Ecclesiastical Wealth in St Andrews, c.1520-1580 (Leiden, 2019). (3) Bess Rhodes, ‘Property and Piety: Donations to Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews’, in John McCallum, ed., Scotland’s Long Reformation: New Perspectives on Scottish Religion, c.1500-c.1660 (Leiden, 2016), pp. 27-49. (4) St Andrews / Holy Trinity, Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches: https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/corpusofscottishchurches/site.php?id=158866 [Accessed 7 May 2021].

cm x cm x cm

current,56.33967567909707,-2.7955488856241577;

Holy Trinity Church, South Street, St Andrews

TEXT

Building

143

1

Catholic,Church of Scotland