Church/Chapel of St Erat, Inverkeithing

Church/Chapel of St Erat, Inverkeithing

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 later medieval parish church. The well is first recorded in a charter of 1219, but the earliest firm reference to it as Eriot’s well can only be dated to 1588. A tradition seems to have developed in the late nineteenth century which suggested that Erat was a follower of St Ninian (one of the most popular medieval Scottish saints, whose shrine was at Whithorn in Galloway), and that he arrived in Inverkeithing sometime in the fifth century AD. The well, and a chapel at nearby Fordell, are the only recorded dedications to a saint named Erat or Theriot in Scotland and there are no contemporary documents nor archaeological evidence that confirm the local tradition.

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tt27@st-andrews.ac.uk

Site

78

15/06/2021

06/15/2021 02:49:21 pm

(1) Cosmo Innes, ed., Liber S. Thome de Aberbrothoc. Registrum Abbacie de Aberbrothoc (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1848-56), i, no. 119. (2) James Wilkie, Bygone Fife. From Culross to St Andrews. Traditions, Legends, Folklore and Local History of “The Kingdom” (Edinburgh, 1931), p. 38-39. (3) William Stephen, The Story of Inverkeithing and Rosyth (Edinburgh, 1938), pp. 13-14.

cm x cm x cm

current,56.03150931275149,-3.39692830995773;

Church/Chapel of St Erat, Inverkeithing

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Building

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