Photograph of Pittenweem Priory in the 1940s. One of the priory outbuildings was home to an eighteenth-century Episcopal congregation. (Credit: University of St Andrews)
Raised beach platforms at Kingcraig, nr. Elie, Fife
Pittenweem (/ˌpɪtənˈwiːm/) is a fishing village and civil parish in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 1,747.
Plaque outside the Parish Church of Inverkeithing (Source: Tom Turpie)
Portrait of John Glas, the founder of the Glasites. (Credit: National Galleries of Scotland)
The site of the pre-Reformation Methil Parish Church, now part of Methilmill Cemetery.
Prince Charles Edward Stuart, also known as the Young Pretender. Portrait by Allan Ramsey. (Credit: National Galleries of Scotland / Wikimedia)
Overview of raised beach platforms at Kingcraig near Elie, Fife
Reconstruction of St Andrews Cathedral in 1318. The older church of St Rule can be seen on the right. (Credit: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Reconstruction of the chapter house at St Andrews Cathedral in the late Middle Ages. (Credit: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Reconstruction showing the possible appearance of the parish church of Holy Trinity in St Andrews, c.1559. (Credit: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Remains of the late medieval church of the Dominican friars in St Andrews. (Credit: Bess Rhodes)
The Rock and Spindle is an ancient volcanic vent, and it has an excellent example of radial columnar jointing (it looks like spokes of a wheel) due to the way the magma cooled. The rock just to the north of the Rock and Spindle is believed to be a section of the volcano that collapsed in on itself.
Overview of Kinkell Ness with Rock and Spindle
The early nineteenth century saw major divisions in the Church of Scotland over secular interference in religious affairs. In the 1840s a large number of relatively evangelical ministers broke away from the established church and founded the Free Church of Scotland. There was considerable support for the Free Church in Fife, including in Crail. Between 1843 and 1845 the Free Church congregation worshipped in a hall on Rose Wynd. They then moved to a church where Crail Community Hall now stands.
This bay doesn’t actually have rubies, it’s named after the tiny red garnets in the sand which look a bit like rubies to the untrained eye. You might find some if you get down on your hands and knees sift through the sand.
Ruins of Lindores Abbey. This photograph looks across what would once have been the cloister. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Salvation Army (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)
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 North Street for meetings. This property was sold in the early twenty-first century and converted into a restaurant.
A corps of the Salvation Army was first launched in Buckhaven in 1897, fell into abeyance and but was re-founded in 1936. They met in Mullin Hall until 1978 when they moved to their current site in Michael Street in a former telephone exchange. They are still active in Buckhaven.
Sampling the platform sections at Kingcraig point for OSL dating
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES)
School of Geography and Sustainable Development (GSD)
Scottish Coast Mission (Source: Places of Worship in Scotland)
The Scottish Coastal Mission, founded in 1850, was a Protestant organisation dedicated to ministering to sailors and maritime communities. By 1861 they employed 10 missionaries and had 29 stations along the east coast of Scotland. They began services in Methil in 1892, and opened the building known as the ‘Seaman's Bethel’ on Dock Street in 1904 at a cost of £8000. It was still active in 1952, but has since closed and been demolished.
Seal of St Andrews Cathedral Priory showing St Rule’s Church. The now demolished nave and west frontage can be seen on the left side of the seal. (Source: University of St Andrews Library)
Site of Buckhaven Links Church (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)
Sketch of ‘Annabella Drummond’s House’, 1894 (Source: John Geddie, The Fringes of Fife (Edinburgh, 1894), p. 41)
Sketch of the Ruins of the May chapel, 1869 (Source: Mathew Conolly, Fifiana: or Memorials of the East of Fife (Glasgow, 1869), p. 204)
St Adrian’s Parish Church, West Wemyss
A Church of Scotland ‘chapel at ease’ was built in what is now Church Street in West Wemyss in 1835. It was intended to save the villagers the long walk to East Wemyss. This structure was replaced by a full parish church in 1895, and briefly served as a local gymnasium before it was demolished to make way for housing in the 1930s. The new church, built on Main Street by the architect Alexander Tod and mainly funded by the Wemyss family, was called St Adrian’s. In the 1960s the cost of repairs led the Church of Scotland to make a decision to close St Adrian’s. However, it was saved in 1972 by Captain Michael Wemyss who established the Wemyss Trust to fund the repairs and future maintenance. In 1976 there was a union between the congregation and those of St Mary’s and St George’s in East Wemyss to form a new entity known as Wemyss Parish Church. This continued until there was a further union with Buckhaven Parish Church in 2008. Since that date one minister serves the newly named parish of Buckhaven and Wemyss Parish, with services alternating between Buckhaven and West Wemyss.
St Agatha’s Roman Catholic Church, Methil
Nearly four centuries after the Protestant Reformation, a Roman Catholic congregation returned to Methil with the opening of a church in 1903. Located on Methil Brae and called St Agatha’s, the congregation had expanded to such an extent that in the early 1920s the decision was taken to build a new church on a site nearby. Designed by Reginald Fairlie, who was also responsible for Methil Parish Church (1924-25), the foundation stone was laid by Bishop Graham Grey of Edinburgh, and it was opened in 1923. Old St Agatha’s was demolished and the site is now home to a nursery. Inside can be found some distinctive stained glass by the artist John Blyth, including the Lady Chapel with Holy Family and Nativity scenes, triptych style scenes in the north west transept depicting Mary with Jesus flanked by angels, and saints. The nave has images of saints Ninian, Patrick, Columba, Mungo, Cuthbert, Magnus, David, John Ogilvie, Andrew, Agatha and Margaret, and Peter appearing to St Agatha. A hall was added to the church in the 1960s and it remains and active church.
St Agatha’s Roman Catholic Church, Methil (Source: Bess Rhodes)
St Andrew's Episcopal Chapel on North Street in St Andrews in about 1865. Not long after this photograph was taken the episcopal congregation moved to a larger church on Queen's Terrace which is still in use today. (Credit: University of St Andrews)
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).
St Andrew’s Chapel in about 1865. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, ALB-10-62. Available at: https://collections.st-andrews.ac.uk/item/st-andrews-chapel-st-andrews/43875 )
St Andrew’s Chapel in about 1865. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, ALB-10-62.)
After the Great Disruption of 1843, adherents of the Free Church in Buckhaven initially attended the church in East Wemyss, before the decision was taken to form a separate congregation in the town in 1866. About 140 members of the church at East Wemyss joined the new congregation, and in 1870 they purchased an Episcopal Chapel first built in North Street, St Andrews (1824-25) for £130. It was dismantled and carried brick by brick to Buckhaven on Thomas Walker's boat 'The Sea King' and opened in 1870. It had a congregation of 240 in 1900, when it became a United Free Church, and continued as such until the congregation united with St David’s and St Michael’s in 1972. The building was closed until 1987 when it was converted into a theatre.
St Andrew’s Church, Buckhaven (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)
St Andrew’s Church, Buckhaven (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
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 for worship) in 1877. The building was designed by Sir Robert Rowland Anderson, and originally had seating for 600 worshippers. During its early history the grand new church was often referred to as a cathedral. In the 1890s a tower was added to St Andrew’s, but it was felt to be structurally unsound and was demolished shortly before the Second World War. St Andrew’s Church remains an Episcopal place of worship to this day.
St Andrew’s Episcopal Church in about 1955. Photograph by George Cowie. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, GMC-29-20-4. Available at: https://collections.st-andrews.ac.uk/item/st-andrews-episcopal-church-queens-terrace-st-andrews/585969)
St Andrews (Latin: S. Andrea(s); Scots: Saunt Aundraes; Scottish Gaelic: Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, 10 miles (16 kilometres) southeast of Dundee and 30 miles (50 kilometres) northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 as of 2011, making it Fife's fourth largest settlement and 45th most populous settlement in Scotland.
St Andrews Castle at the end of the seventeenth century. The windows of the castle chapel (with their quatrefoil tracery) can be seen to the right of the fore tower. (Source: John Slezer, ‘The Ruins of the Castle of St Andrews’, Theatrum Scotiae (1693). Available at: http://digital.nls.uk/slezer/engraving.cfm?sl=15)
St Andrews Castle seen from the air. Before the Reformation the castle was the residence of the Archbishops of St Andrews. (Credit: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
St Andrews Cathedral was once the most important church in Scotland. It was the base for the country’s senior bishopric and housed the relics of Jesus’s disciple Andrew (the nation’s patron saint). The origins of St Andrews Cathedral stretch back into the Early Middle Ages when there was a Celtic monastery in this area. In the twelfth century religious life in St Andrews underwent major changes, and a priory of Augustinian canons took over care of the church and shrine. During the 1160s work began on a vast new Cathedral, which was eventually consecrated (in other words officially blessed and opened for worship) in 1318 in the presence of King Robert the Bruce. The completed Cathedral was the largest building constructed in Scotland before the nineteenth century. It was a centre of pilgrimage, learning, power, and law. Indeed, the church courts in St Andrews were among the busiest in the kingdom. However, in 1559 the Protestant Reformers tore apart this Catholic power base. The Cathedral was stripped of furnishings, altars and statues were smashed, and wooden images and Catholic mass-books were burnt. The vast church rapidly fell into ruin, and orchards, gardens, and houses took over much of the wider Cathedral site. Today the core of the former religious buildings are cared for by Historic Environment Scotland, whilst much of the wider site is occupied by St Leonard’s School.
Carboniferous volcanic vent, Kinkell Ness has at its centre the Rock and Spindle
St Andrews’ Dominican friary shortly after the Reformation. (Source: John Geddy, ‘S. Andrew sive Andreapolis Scotiae Universitas Metropolitana’. NLS, MS.20996. Available at: http://maps.nls.uk/towns/rec/215)
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 dead. Chantries, or chaplainries as they were traditionally termed in Scotland, were often part of a larger church, but could be a separate building like St Anna’s. In the early sixteenth century church courts sometimes met in St Anna’s Chapel. Early property records indicate that near the chapel there was area known as ‘St Anna’s Yard’. Shortly after the Reformation the chapel and its revenues were transferred to St Andrews burgh council. By the late 1560s the site of St Anna’s was held by Robert Pont, a leading figure in the Reformed Church of Scotland. The area where the chapel once stood is now covered by the University of St Andrews’ College Gate building.
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 them. It was built on land belonging to the Abbey of Balmerino (where the Scottish Fisheries Museum now stands) and administered by the monks. In 1435 an indenture between Balmerino and the bishop of St Andrews, gave the monks the right to use the chapel to administer the sacraments to the local people. This meant that they would no longer have to travel to Kilrenny to baptise their children or get married, and the chaplain would have been able to administer the last rites. The chapel may have fallen out of use before the Reformation and after 1560 houses were built on the site. Some traces of the chapel could still be seen in the 1880s, and they were acquired and converted into the Scottish Fisheries Museum in the 1960s.
St Clair Parish Church, West Port, Dysart
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 Street. By 1874 the congregation had outgrown the building and a new church was constructed in the West Port. The old church was sold, and by 1890 had become a Masonic Lodge. In the north transept of the new church there is a mural, uncovered in 2004, believed to have been painted by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1901. Following the union between the Free and United Presbyterian churches in 1900 it became known as St. Serf’s United Free. In 1929 the congregation re-joined the Church of Scotland, and in 1972 they merged with the Barony Church to become Dysart Parish Church- using the building in the West Port. In 2012 there was a union between the congregations of Dysart and Viewforth, and the resulting church is known as Dysart St Clair Parish Church, still based in the church in the West Port.
St Columba’s Episcopal Church, Aberdour
Towards the end of the 1840s the Free Church congregation in Crail built a church on the road then known as Jockeys Port (now called St Andrews Road). The original Victorian building was demolished near the beginning of the twentieth century, and replaced with an imposing Gothic revival building designed by James Davidson Cairns. The new building was influenced by both Scottish and English architectural traditions. In 1929 the Free Church rejoined the Church of Scotland. This meant there was more than one Church of Scotland congregation in Crail, and the former Free Church became known as St David’s. The building continued as a place of worship until the 1950s when it was converted into a church hall. It is now owned by Crail Community Partnership and is run as an event space for the local area under the name Crail Community Hall.
By 1869, the congregation of the United Presbyterian Church on Buckhaven Links took the decision to construct a new, larger, place of worship on Church Street. The new building, called St David’s, was capable of seating 860 people and built at a cost of £2,600, was opened on 12 April. It had a congregation of 558 when the United Presbyterian Church entered a union with the Free Church of Scotland in 1900 to become the United Free Church. The congregation decided to join the Church of Scotland in 1929. In 1972, there was a union between Buckhaven’s three Church of Scotland charges (St Michael’s, St Andrew’s and St David’s) to form Buckhaven Parish Church. In 2008 that congregation united with Wemyss to form Buckhaven and Wemyss Parish Church. Services are held in West Wemyss (St Adrian’s) and Buckhaven (St David’s).
St Ethernan/Adrian’s Chapel, Isle of May
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, Ethernan and Adrian. The name Adrian is a Latinised version of the Gaelic name Ethernan and veneration of Adrian was recorded in the same locations as Ethernan. Adrian is therefore almost certainly an offshoot or adaptation of the cult of St Ethernan. The island was home to a priory of Cluniac/Benedictine Monks from c.1140 to c.1318. After the monks relocated to Pittenweem, the relics on the island continued to attract pilgrims, including a number of Scottish kings and queens, until the Reformation brought the practice to an end.
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 version of the Benedictine rule, before following the lead of their mother house and reverting back to the general Benedictine rule sometime after 1207. It is likely that the monks were attracted to the site on the Isle of May because it had an existing church and a connection to an important local saint. The excavation of the site in the 1990s found that there was already quite a substantial building on the site when monks arrived in the twelfth century, and that it was not until c.1250 that they constructed their own larger church. Of this church, the main survival today is the west wing, which was converted to secular use in the sixteenth-century. One other important discovery during the excavation was the grave of a young man dating from the early fourteenth century, which included a scallop shell placed in his mouth. This was a clear indication that the man, who had been buried in a prestigious location close to the high altar, had travelled to Santiago de Compostela on pilgrimage.
Early Christian hand-bell formerly kept and used in St Fillan’s Church, Struan (near Blair Atholl), Perthshire, and possibly associated with that place since the eighth century. It is made of wrought iron, coated in bronze. From the collection of Perth Museum & Art Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council. accession: PERGM 3/1939 Height 333mm
St Fillan's Church 20100930 from the south
St Fillan's Church, Aberdour, Fife, Scotland. View from the south.
St Fillan's Church, Aberdour (Source: Bess Rhodes 2021)
St Fillan's Church, Aberdour (Source: Richard Fawcett, 2012)
The parish church of Aberdour first appears in the records in the twelfth century when it was the subject of a dispute between a local lord, William de Mortimer, and the Augustinian canons of Inchcolm. Substantial sections of the current building almost certainly date from the that period, and it was further expanded in the fifteenth century. After the Protestant Reformation, several sections of the church were converted into burial aisles for local noble families. 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. Soon after its closure, the roof was removed, and it came close to being completely demolished. Fortunately, shortly after World War I the minister, Robert Johnsone, concocted the bold plan of restoring the church. The restoration was carried out by the architect William Williamson of Kirkcaldy in time for a grand reopening on 7 July 1926. In 1940, the congregation joined the former Free Church of St Colme’s and the parish church of Dalgety in a triple union. It remains an active place of worship.
St Fort disused sand and gravel quarry on the Wormit esker.
Aerial view of St Fort sand and gravel quarry
St George’s Church, East Wemyss (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
St George’s Parish Church, East Wemyss
At the Great Disruption in 1843 a large group of the congregation of East Wemyss parish church broke away and joined the Free Church. They began building a church in Main Street the following year and it opened for worship in 1846. In 1929 the congregation re-joined the Church of Scotland and took on the name St George’s, moving to a new building in 1936-37. The old church was used as a storeroom for a factory, and was finally demolished in 1995 to make way for a sewage works. The new church, described by Gifford as competent dead end Gothic revival, was united with St Adrian’s in West Wemyss in 1973, and with St Mary’s in 1976 to become Wemyss Parish Church. This continued until a further union in 2008, this time with Buckhaven Parish Church, led to the closure of St George’s.
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 the nineteenth century Catholicism returned to the area. In 1885 a Roman Catholic church dedicated to St James was founded on the Scores, looking out over the sea. The original church was made of corrugated iron and was sometimes known as the ‘Tin Tabernacle’. In 1909 the iron church was removed and replaced by a stone church designed by Reginald Fairlie, who would later become a leading Scottish architect (designing among other sites the National Library of Scotland). The interior of the church underwent some alteration in the 1970s to reflect new approaches to worship following the Second Vatican Council (which ended in 1965). Today St James’s remains a Roman Catholic church, serving the residents and students of St Andrews.
St John's Church in Inverkeithing has its origins in an eighteenth-century burgher congregation. In 1847 the congregation of St John's joined the United Presbyterians. The congregation later became Church of Scotland. (Credit: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
St John's Church in Inverkeithing has its origins in an eighteenth-century burgher congregation. In 1847 the congregation of St John's joined the United Presbyterians. The congregation later became Church of Scotland. The building now serves as the parish church for Inverkeithing. (Credit: Graeme Smith / Wikimedia)
St John's, Inverkeithing (Source: Bess Rhodes)
St John’s, Church Street, Inverkeithing
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 the burgh and in 1753 built St John’s Church. The building was heightened and widened in 1798-99 to accommodate what, by the 1830s, was a congregation comprising roughly half the burgh’s population. Initially a member of the Burgher Church, they joined the Associate Congregation in 1786, and the United Associate (Secession) Congregation in 1820. From 1780 to 1835 the minister was Reverend Ebenezer Brown, a gifted preacher with a nationwide reputation. In 1847 they became part of the United Presbyterian Church and following the union of the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church in 1900, the church was known as Inverkeithing United Free Church. In 1929 the congregation re-joined the Church of Scotland, and the charge was renamed Inverkeithing St John's Church of Scotland. In 2006 it united with St Peter’s, and is no longer in use for worship.
St Katherine’s Chapel / Parish Church
For several centuries St Katherine’s Church (which was formerly located on the north side of the High Street) served as Newburgh’s parish church. The church is first recorded in 1470 when it was described as ‘the chapel of St Katherine the Virgin’. At this point the chapel seems to have already been an established place of worship. In 1508 there is a reference to funds being put aside for the ‘new kirk’ which was to be built in the burgh of Newburgh in honour of St Duthac, St Katherine, and St Mary Magdalene. It is thought that this relates to a remodelling and expansion of the original chapel of St Katherine. Unlike many Scottish chapels St Katherine’s survived the Reformation as a place of worship. In the early seventeenth century St Katherine’s became a parish church when Newburgh split from the parish of Abdie. Some restoration work was undertaken on St Katherine’s in the late eighteenth century. In the 1790s the building was described by the parish minister Thomas Stuart as ‘an old Popish chapel... which, in consequence of a late thorough repair, has been made a very convenient place of worship’. Later generations did not agree with this assessment. In 1832 the medieval church was demolished and replaced with a new building designed by the notable Edinburgh architect William Burn. Slightly ironically Burn’s design was in the Gothic revival style. The nineteenth-century St Katherine’s Church was an impressive building, which for many decades dominated the High Street. However, in the 1960s St Katherine’s was demolished and the congregation moved to the current Newburgh Parish Church (which stands more towards the eastern edge of Newburgh). The site is now occupied by a garden and flats known as St Katherine’s Court.
St Katherine’s Episcopal Mission Church
There were some Episcopalian families in Newburgh in the eighteenth century. However, they do not appear to have had an official place of worship. In the 1890s a small Episcopal Chapel was built on the corner of Abbey Road. In the 1920s a peal of bells was given to the chapel in honour of the men of the parish who lost their lives in the First World War. A stone memorial tablet was also created at this time. This building was demolished in 1987. The site is now occupied by housing. The low stone wall and metal gates which once surrounded the chapel can still be seen.
St Leonard’s Chapel after 1761. The chapel was then in ruins and being used to grow shrubs, although the (now demolished) college tower was still standing. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, OLI-15. Available at: https://collections.st-andrews.ac.uk/item/st-leonards-chapel/93063)
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 association with St Leonard is first recorded in the thirteenth century, when the hospital was still serving pilgrims visiting the shrine of St Andrew. At some point between 1250 and 1413 St Leonard’s came to be a parish church, but remained under the control of the Cathedral Priory. By the beginning of the sixteenth century pilgrimage to St Andrews had declined and the hospital was providing shelter to a group of elderly poor women. In 1512 the old women were removed and a new university college dedicated to St Leonard was founded on the site. Significant sections of the chapel appear to date from this time, and the arms of one of the college’s founders (Prior John Hepburn) can be seen on a buttress on the south side. In 1747 St Leonard’s College joined with St Salvator’s College to create the United College (which was based in St Salvator’s Quad on North Street). This union led to major changes. The congregation of St Leonard’s removed to St Salvator’s Chapel in 1761. The university sold the St Leonard’s buildings a little while later, but excluded the chapel from the sale. No longer used as a place of worship it was partly dismantled, and by the time Samuel Johnson visited St Andrews in 1773 the former chapel was being used as ‘a kind of green-house’. During the nineteenth century the wider St Leonard’s buildings became a school, and some conservation work was done on the chapel. In 1910 the church was re-roofed, and after the Second World War it once again became a university chapel. Services are celebrated here each week during term time.
The parish of St Leonard’s has its origins in the Middle Ages. However, the congregation has only worshipped in the current St Leonard’s Church on Hepburn Gardens since the early years of the twentieth century. From 1761 until 1904 the parishioners of St Leonard’s held services in St Salvator’s College Chapel. Their departure from St Salvator’s was surrounded by controversy. In 1898 the University of St Andrews declared a wish for St Salvator’s to be a university chapel and requested the congregation of St Leonard’s to move. Objecting to the change the St Leonard’s congregation took legal proceedings against the university. Eventually it was agreed that land on the outskirts of St Andrews, in what was then known as Rathelpie, should be acquired for St Leonard’s. A new church was built there according to a design by Peter Macgregor Chalmers, and using local sandstone from Nydie. The architecture of St Leonard’s was inspired by the rounded arches and solid appearance of Romanesque buildings. The church has a fine collection of stained glass, much of which was installed in the 1920s and 1930s. Shortly before the Second World War a church hall was built beside the church. Further alterations were made to the church in the 1960s and at the start of the twenty-first century. Today St Leonard’s remains home to an active Church of Scotland congregation.
St Martha’s Hospital and St Fillan’s Well, Aberdour
James Douglas, 1st earl of Morton (d.1493) founded St Martha’s hospital in Aberdour in 1474. It was located close to a holy well dedicated to St Fillan whose water was believed to cure nervous ailments, blindness, and deafness. The location of the well is recorded in the name of an eighteenth-century house ‘Wellside’, located at 45-47 Main Street, Aberdour. The tradition of those with eye problems visiting the well and using its water, seems to have survived well into the modern era. Writing in the 1850s, William Ross stated that this was a practice that was within living memory. The proximity of the site to Inchcolm means that it is possible that the hospital could also have been intended to serve any pilgrims heading to that island, where an image of St Columba was the subject of miracle stories. By 1486, frustrated that the project had not been realised despite a number of endowments of lands, the earl of Morton granted the lands and building to four sisters of the Order of St Francis, and a bull of 1487 extinguished the name and rights of the hospital.
James Douglas, earl of Morton (d.1493) founded St Martha’s hospital in Aberdour in 1474. However, by 1486 this project had not been realised, and the earl granted the lands and building to four Sisters of the Third Order of St Francis, Isobel and Jean Wright, Frances Henryson, and Jean Drossewith. The nuns of this order were generally associated with hospitals, and the convent at Aberdour was one of only two such communities in Scotland. The dedicatee, St Martha of Bethany was a biblical figure included in the gospels of Luke and John. She was the sister of Lazarus and witnessed his resurrection. In 1560 the house was disbanded, when the four remaining sisters Agnes Wrycht, Elizabeth Trumball, Margaret Crummy, and Cristina Cornawell leased their lands and buildings to James Douglas, 4th earl of Morton (d.1581).
The placename Eglismartin (the ‘Church of (St) Martin’) in Easter Aberdour was first recorded in the fourteenth century. Names with the Eglis or Eccles element, short for Latin Ecclesiastes or Ecclesia (church), tend to indicate religious foundations dating back to the Pictish era (pre-900AD). By the later middle ages, when the place-name was recorded, there was no church on the site, and no other contemporary records survive to confirm its existence. However, tentative evidence that this had been the site of a church can be found in the Ordnance Survey Name Book of 1853-1855. In that survey, Mr Barr, the factor for the Inch Marton plantation, noted that a stone coffin and human bones had been found at the site some years previously.
Little is known about the medieval chapel of St Mary Magdalene. Sixteenth-century property records indicate that it was located within the cathedral precinct, probably a little way to the south of what we now call St Rule’s Church (then more commonly known as the ‘old church’). According to a document from 1571 ‘the garden of the chapel of St Magdalene with the chapel itself’ stood just to the west of a house and garden held by David Peblis (a former canon at the Cathedral Priory). Both properties seem to have been bounded on the north by ‘the cemetery of the old church’. Several small buildings with gardens can be seen in this area on the late sixteenth-century Geddy Map of St Andrews. It is likely that the chapel stopped serving a religious purpose at the Reformation (so a few years before the description from 1571). The garden of St Magdalene continues to appear in property records during the 1580s. However the name seems to have disappeared by the late seventeenth century. Near the start of the twentieth century the antiquarian David Hay Fleming noted the discovery of stones from a Norman arch and part of the base of an ‘Early English clustered column’ a little south of St Rule’s which he felt ‘may be regarded as indicating the site of St Magdalene’s Chapel’. However efforts in the 1960s to find further remains in this area were not successful.
The parish church of St Mary in East Wemyss, first recorded c.1230, belonged successively to the Hospital of Soutra and the Church of the Holy Trinity in Edinburgh in the Middle Ages. The church was largely rebuilt in the 1520s, and considerable alterations were made to it in the early 1600s, including the construction of a family mausoleum outside the church by the earl of Wemyss, which would become known as the Wemyss Aisle. Although considered to small for the parish by the nineteenth century, repairs were carried out in the late 1800s, which, combined with the addition of a hall in the 1920s, have made it difficult for architectural historians to judge how much of the medieval structure remains. In 1976 there was a union between St Mary’s and St George’s Church in East Wemyss and St Adrian’s in West Wemyss. As a result, St Mary’s was closed for worship. It was first converted into a recording studio, and since 1985 it has been used as a private house.
St Mary’s By the Sea (Source: Richard Fawcett 2012)
St Mary’s Chapel in West Wemyss was connected to the parish church in East Wemyss, as a dispute of 1527-28 noted that offerings at the chapel should be paid to the patrons of that church. No record survives of when the chapel was constructed, although there is an interesting, but unlikely, local legend that it was founded by Spaniards fleeing the Inquisition in the late fifteenth century. The purpose of the chapel is also unclear from the surviving documents. It may have been a private place of worship belonging to the Wemyss family as it is located in the gardens of the castle and seems to have been under their patronage. However, it was also connected to the parish church, so it may have been an early chapel-at-ease for the villagers of West Wemyss. The chapel was abandoned at the Reformation, before being converted into a four-storey house by David, 1st earl of Wemyss in the 1620s. Some ruins of the house still survive.
St Mary’s Church, St Mary’s Place
During the early nineteenth century the parish church of Holy Trinity on South Street became too small for the growing population of St Andrews. To address this problem, St Mary’s Church was built on the south side of what became known as St Mary’s Place. The church opened for Church of Scotland worship around 1840, and could seat up to 700 people. The new building was designed by the Edinburgh architect William Burn (who would go on to become a leading proponent of the Scottish baronial style). Following the extension of Holy Trinity in the early twentieth-century St Mary’s was no longer needed as a church and was converted into the Victory Memorial Hall (the name commemorates the ending of the First World War). The front of the building has seen major alterations. Much of the stone is now harled and the windows have been altered. However, the buttresses down each side of the building and the main entrance still reflect its original Victorian design.
The site of St Mary’s College on South Street has lengthy associations with religion and learning. In 1419 Robert de Montrose (one of the priests who served at St Mary’s on the Rock) donated a plot of land for ‘a College of Theologians and Artists in honour of Almighty God and especially of the Blessed John the Evangelist’. The first master of the College of St John was Laurence of Lindores – who also served as Inquisitor of Heretical Pravity for Scotland (in other words he was the chief official investigating religious dissent). From an early date St John’s College had its own chapel. Indeed the chapel may have predated the foundation of the College. By the early sixteenth century St John’s had fallen on hard times, and in the 1530s Archbishop James Beaton decided to refound it as a college dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The new St Mary’s College was intended to educate Catholic churchmen to fight heresy. During the 1540s Cardinal David Beaton invested in new buildings for St Mary’s. Masons from the royal palace at Falkland came to work on the college, and a marble altar for the chapel was imported from France. Further work was commissioned by Archbishop John Hamilton in the 1550s. There is some disagreement about whether building work on the chapel had been completed at the time of the Reformation. However, records in the university archives indicate that as early as 1546 St Mary’s College chapel was being used for official ceremonies. The Protestant policy of encouraging members of the university to worship with the residents of the town, probably brought an end to the religious function of the college chapel, and the Geddy map of about 1580 appears to show the building in ruins. Decorative fragments from the pre-Reformation chapel can be seen on the south side of Parliament Hall (which stands on the site of the former chapel). During the late sixteenth-century St Mary’s was reorganised as a Protestant college, and trained ministers for the Reformed Kirk. Today St Mary’s College is still the centre of Divinity teaching and research at the University of St Andrews.
The ruins of the medieval church of St Mary’s on the Rock (also called St Mary’s Kirkhill) stand on the cliffs looking out over the North Sea. This headland has been a place of importance since prehistoric times, and several Iron Age graves have been found in the area. More than three hundred early Christian burials have also been excavated near St Mary’s – suggesting that this was one of the oldest religious sites in St Andrews. By the twelfth century there was a Culdee church here. This then became a community of priests known as the College of St Mary on the Rock. It is thought that St Mary’s may be the first collegiate church in Scotland. During the late Middle Ages St Mary’s was a royal chapel, though it perhaps lost this status near the beginning of the sixteenth century (following the creation of the Chapel Royal at Stirling). At the Reformation St Mary’s was served by a provost and twelve prebends, a number which echoes Christ and his twelve disciples. When the St Andrews’ authorities adopted Protestantism some of the priests at St Mary’s joined the Reformed Church, but others resisted religious change. The clerics who resisted had property confiscated and faced prosecution. One of the St Mary’s priests who refused to join the Protestant congregation was Thomas Methven. When summoned before the Superintendent of Fife in August 1561 Methven apparently declared that he was ‘neither a Papist nor a Calvinist... but Jesus Christ’s man’. Methven’s comment did not endear him to St Andrews’ religious leaders and he was banished from the burgh. The buildings of St Mary’s on the Rock also suffered an unfortunate fate. The church was attacked in June 1559, and in 1561the college was declared ‘a profane house’. By the late sixteenth century the church had been demolished (although some of the domestic college buildings may still have been standing). The foundations of St Mary’s on the Rock were rediscovered in the nineteenth century and are now cared for by Historic Environment Scotland.