St Andrew’s Chapel

St Andrew’s Chapel

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 in St Andrews ever since this split, but it was not until the early nineteenth century that discrimination had reduced enough for them to build an official church. In 1824 work began on an Episcopalian chapel dedicated to St Andrew and located on North Street. The original chapel was designed by John Burn, but in the 1850s the west front was remodelled by the well-known Gothic architect George Gilbert Scott. During the mid-nineteenth century St Andrew’s Chapel had seating for 200 people, but this soon became too few for the growing Episcopal community. In 1867 the Episcopalians laid the foundations of a larger church on Queen’s Terrace. A few years later St Andrew’s Chapel was dismantled and the stones were shipped to the south side of Fife to construct Buckhaven Free Church. The site of St Andrew’s Chapel is now occupied by College Gate (one of the main administrative buildings of the University of St Andrews).

sacredlandscapesoffife

Bess Rhodes

Site

73

21/05/2021

10/05/2021 07:02:26 pm

(1) R.G. Cant, ‘Public Buildings of St Andrews, 1790-1914, Churches, Schools and Hospitals’, in Mary Innes and Joan Whelan, eds, Three Decades of Historical Notes: Reprinted from the Yearbooks of the St Andrews Preservation Trust 1964-1989 (St Andrews, 1991), p. 121. (2) Raymond Lamont-Brown, St Andrews: City by the Northern Sea (Edinburgh, 2006), pp. 165-166. (3) Historic Environment Scotland, Canmore entry for St Andrew’s Church, Buckhaven: https://canmore.org.uk/site/91978/buckhaven-church-street-st-andrews-st-andrews-church [Accessed 11 May 2021]. (4) Places of Worship in Scotland, St Andrew’s Church, Wemyss: http://www.scottishchurches.org.uk/sites/site/id/4638/name/St.+Andrew%27s+Church+Wemyss+Fife [Accessed 11 May 2021].

cm x cm x cm

current,56.34116974611388,-2.7929453551769257;

St Andrew’s Chapel

TEXT

Building

415

Episcopal