The building now occupied by Newburgh Flooring is widely believed to have once been a church. In reality for much of its history it appears to have functioned as a church hall. In 1885 John Livingstone paid for the construction of a stone hall for 500 to 600 people on the east side of Newburgh. The hall was designed by the Dundee architect John Young, and cost £1,450. The building became known as Livingstone Hall in his honour. In the late 1920s the Church of Scotland took on responsibility for the building. The property documents recording this transfer specified that Livingstone Hall should be used for Sunday schools, Bible classes, choir practices, religious education, ‘benevolent purposes’, and lectures and entertainments ‘of an instructive and elevating character’. In the 1960s Livingstone Hall was converted to a garage, and significant alterations were made to the building. It is currently home to a local company selling flooring materials. The west end of the building still has the pointed nineteenth-century windows from the original hall, although much of the rest of the structure has been transformed.
The west end of the former Livingstone Hall. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
United Reformed Church (formerly Congregational Church)
On the east side of Clinton Street stands Newburgh’s United Reformed Church. This building has a complicated denominational history. In the early 1840s over a hundred people who disagreed with the congregation at the former Burgher Church on Clinton Street banded together to create a Relief Church congregation which worshipped in the town hall. They subsequently joined the United Presbyterian Church, and around 1850 built what is now the United Reform Church. As a result for much of the mid-nineteenth century there were two United Presbyterian churches on Clinton Street (the other being the former Burgher Church on the west side of the street). In the 1870s it was suggested that the two congregations should merge together. However, the members of what is now the United Reform Church objected to this plan, and determined ‘to try their fortunes elsewhere’. As a result they left the United Presbyterians in favour of the Evangelical Union, which by the 1890s had become part of the Congregational Church. In 2000 the Congregational Union of Scotland joined the United Reformed Church, meaning that the affiliation of the church on Clinton Street changed once again. The building is still a place of worship with regular Sunday services.
The United Reform Church on Clinton Street. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
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.
The site once occupied by St Katherine’s Episcopal Mission Church. The stone wall and iron gates are all that remain from the former church. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
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.
The impressive street frontage of St Katherine’s Parish Church in the mid-twentieth century. (Source: Newburgh Ancestry and History Society)
Newburgh Parish Church (Formerly United Free Church)
Newburgh Parish Church was built in the early 1900s. It originally served as the United Free Church. The building was designed by the Dundee architects Patrick Thoms and William Wilkie (who had then newly gone into partnership together). In 1929 the United Free Church rejoined the Church of Scotland. A few decades later in the 1960s it was decided that Newburgh no longer required two Church of Scotland congregations. At this point St Katherine’s (Newburgh’s original parish church) closed, and the former United Free Church building became the main parish church for Newburgh. In the early twenty-first century the Church of Scotland congregation in Newburgh joined with the congregation in Abdie to create a new parish known as Lindores. Services are currently held at both the Newburgh and the Abdie sites.
Gothic revival carving above the main entrance to Newburgh Parish Church. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Lindores Abbey was founded in the late twelfth century by David, Earl of Huntingdon. The earl had recently fought in the Third Crusade and established the abbey to give thanks to God for his safe return to Scotland. Lindores was a Tironesian monastery. The Tironesians were at that time a relatively new religious order, and were part of a movement for a stricter style of monastic life. Lindores Abbey would go on to play a major role in shaping the medieval development of the south side of the River Tay. In the 1260s the abbot and monks of Lindores were instrumental in founding the new urban settlement of Newburgh. They also introduced new farming practices on their estates, including establishing reknowned orchards. In the early 1500s fruit trees from Lindores Abbey were sent to Stirling Castle to develop the royal orchards. The monks of Lindores also undertook distilling. In the 1490s a brother at the abbey named Jon Cor received a delivery of malt for producing ‘aquavitae’ for King James IV. This is thought to be the earliest reference to whisky production in Scotland. The monastery appears to have thrived up until the period of the Scottish Reformation, when it was sacked in June 1559 by Protestant activists led by John Knox. Many of the religious furnishings of the abbey were burned in front of the monks and they were forced to reject Catholicism. Lindores Abbey ceased to serve a religious purpose after this date. The southern area of the monastery is now occupied by Lindores Distillery, while the ruins of the church and cloister can be visited by the public as part of tours of the distillery.
Ruins of Lindores Abbey. This photograph looks across what would once have been the cloister. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Burgher Church / United Presbyterian Church
A Burgher Church was built on the west side of Clinton Street in the 1780s. The Burghers were a break-away movement from the Church of Scotland and enjoyed considerable support in Newburgh. In the 1790s the local Church of Scotland minister commented that the ‘Burgher Seceders may exceed one third of the whole inhabitants of the parish’. In the 1820s most of the Burgher churches in Scotland joined with the Anti-Burghers (a related movement which adopted a more severe line on engagement in civic life) to create the new United Secession Church. Not long after this, in the 1830s, the church on the west side of Clinton Street was expanded. In 1847 there was further reorganisation and the congregation became part of the United Presbyterians. Sadly for much of the late nineteenth century the congregation was split by bitter feuding, and in the 1890s the minister John Brown apparently gave ‘serious offence to a large section of his people’ by a controversial sermon on the evils of alcohol. At the start of the twentieth century the congregation became known as Newburgh West United Free Church (following the union of the United Presbyterians and the Free Church). However, numbers attending the church had already declined significantly. By 1912 the site seems to have stopped being used for worship and was functioning as a drill hall. The former church was used by Polish units during the Second World War. It later became a weaving centre and now serves as holiday accommodation.
The former burgher chapel in Newburgh. The building now provides holiday accommodation. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
The Baptist Chapel on the north side of the High Street in Newburgh was built in the early 1880s. It replaced an earlier chapel on a wynd on the south side of the same street. The funds for the new building were largely raised by James W. Wood, who was chairman of Tayside Floorcloth Company. Around this time several Baptists (including Wood) were influential on the Newburgh town council. The Baptists seem to have had a presence in Newburgh beyond the official membership of their church. In the early 1900s the pastor noted that while the Newburgh Baptist Church had about thirty ‘regular adherents’ (presumably people who could be relied upon to attend Sunday services), the ‘average attendance’ at their Wednesday evening prayer meeting was forty people, and that between forty and fifty also attended their ‘class’ (possibly a reference to some form of Sunday school). An active Baptist congregation continued in Newburgh into the early twenty-first century. However, in the 2010s the church closed. The former Baptist church has since been converted into a house.
The former Baptist church on the north side of the High Street in Newburgh. This building was in use as a place of worship until the 2010s. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Baptist Chapel, South Side of High Street
In 1808 a Baptist chapel was founded in Newburgh. The congregation was established by Archibald McLean, who was leading figure in the Scotch Baptists (a group which developed in Edinburgh in the eighteenth-century and was rather more hardline than the English Baptist tradition). The congregation initially worshipped in a chapel on the south side of the High Street in a wynd known as Mr Ramsay’s Close. The first pastor of the congregation was a linen manufacturer called James Wilkie. He was succeeded in around 1840 by Alexander Craighead – who also served as school-master and post-master of Newburgh. Craighead was a skilled Hebrew scholar and apparently ‘revelled in the Book of God in the original language’. One of the last pastors of what became known as the ‘Old Chapel’ was James Wood, who was converted to Baptist beliefs by his wife Christian Wilkie. Wood was baptised in the River Tay and, together with his spouse, helped expand the Baptist congregation in Newburgh. In the 1880s the Baptists moved to a larger church on the north side of the High Street. The fate of the original chapel on Ramsay’s Close is uncertain.
The site of the old Baptist chapel in Newburgh. (Source: 1855 Ordnance Survey Map of Fife, sheet 4. Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/74426821)
The hill known as Mares Craig was for many years a stone quarry. In the 1920s a Celtic handbell, of the type associated with early medieval religious foundations, was discovered here, along with a considerable number of dressed stones and lime mortar. Human remains, some of them in what may have been long cists (a type of stone box for burials), were also found in the area during the early twentieth century. It is therefore possible that Mares Craig was the site of an early medieval chapel. Unfortunately, the likeliest locations for this building have since been destroyed by quarrying. The place-name Mares Craig may also have religious associations. The name is recorded as far back as 1541, when it was spelled ‘Mariscrag’. It is thought that this may be a reference to the Virgin Mary (to whom the nearby Lindores Abbey was dedicated).
The site of the Mares Craig quarry in the early twentieth century. (Source: 1920 Ordnance Survey map of Fife and Kinross, Sheet VI.SE. Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/75530896).
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 as a ‘plain substantial building’. It was intended to accommodate between 500 and 600 people (perhaps standing close together). In the 1960s the parish of Abdie united with the nearby parish of Dunbog, and the parish church at Dunbog closed a little later. Abdie and Dunbog is now part of a new parish known as Lindores, which covers Newburgh as well. On Sundays the same minister celebrates services in the Church of Scotland parish church in Newburgh, and the church at Abdie.
Abdie and Dunbog Parish Church (Bess Rhodes).
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 services and care for the local community. In the 1450s the vicar of Abdie was an unsatisfactory character named John Laing. It was alleged that Laing was ‘an open and notorious fornicator’ who was ‘ignorant of letters and unfit to hold divine office’. After this there may have been efforts to find Abdie a more educated priest, as in 1466 a university graduate named Alexander Meldrum became vicar. Until the late 1550s many of the parishioners of Abdie seem to have supported traditional Catholic piety. However, after the Reformation the structures of the new Protestant Church of Scotland were established relatively quickly. At the start of the 1660s the medieval church was extended by the addition of an aisle on the north side. The new aisle was funded by the then minister Alexander Balfour and his family, who lived at nearby Denmylne Castle. In 1689 the minister of Abdie, William Arnott, was removed from his post for refusing to accept William and Mary as monarchs. Perhaps chastened by this experience, many of the eighteenth-century ministers of Abdie appear to have avoided political controversy. Indeed, Thomas Millar (minister from 1788 to 1792) was described by contemporaries as being ‘distinguished for sedateness’. However, this was not the approach adopted by Robert Thomas, who became minister of Abdie in 1796. The new parish minister became involved in political writing, publishing an attack on the revolutionary theories of Thomas Paine. At over 430 pages it was one of the longest eighteenth-century responses to Paine’s work. Robert Thomas also became involved in a bitter dispute about his glebe (the area of land assigned to a parish minister). The disagreement about the glebe went all the way to the House of Lords, which was then the highest court of appeal in the United Kingdom. By the time of Robert Thomas, the medieval church at Abdie was deemed increasingly out of date. It was criticised as ‘an old narrow building, low in the walls, and poorly lighted’. In the 1820s the congregation moved to a new building a short distance away. The old church soon fell into disrepair and by 1836 was in ruins. Today the building is completely roofless, though most of the external walls still stand. Several notable medieval and early modern tombstones can be found in and around the old church.
St Andrew’s Church, Buckhaven (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Font of St Michael’s Church, Buckhaven (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buckhaven (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Salvation Army (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Parish Church (formerly St Davids) (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Church of God (Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Baptist Church (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
The Buckhaven Church of God was formed as a breakaway from the Open Brethren in 1986. They are an evangelical organisation part of the global organisation known as the Churches of God. The church is still active.
Buckhaven Church of God (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007).
Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buckhaven
Jehovah’s Witnesses were first established in Buckhaven in 1971, moving into a building constructed c.1900 and previously occupied by a group known as the Church of Christ. The building underwent significant renovation in 1980, and is still in active use.
Buckhaven Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)
The Buckhaven Christian Fellowship moved into the building on Institution Street in 1969. It had formerly been a United Free Church constructed in 1934. The Fellowship were a Pentecostal Church, originally known as the Assembly of God. The group had left the site some time before 2006, when it the building was demolished and sold to make way for houses.
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.
Salvation Army (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)
Buckhaven’s Baptist Church was formed in the early 1900s as part of a wider revival moment in Fife. The earliest mission began in November of 1908, with a church formally founded in 1910. This early congregation had 20 members and met in the Rechabite Hall, before building their own church in College Street in 1915. Capable of seating 200, it was built by G. C Campbell. The congregation remains active and has been on the same site for more than a century.
Buckhaven Baptist Church (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)
In 1901 a Church of Scotland ‘chapel at ease’ was established to serve the inhabitants of Buckhaven. Constructed in St Michael’s Street, it became a full parish church in 1929, and was known as Buckhaven Parish Church until 1972 when 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. At that date it was found to need extensive repairs and the decision was taken to demolish it. Private residences were then erected on the site and no signs of the church remain, although its baptismal font can be found in the grounds of Buckhaven and Wemyss Parish Church (St David’s).
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)
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).
Buckhaven and Wemyss Parish Church (Source: Presbytery of Kirkcaldy, 2021)
In 1739 a Buckhaven resident and one of the elders of Wemyss Parish Church, Mr John Thomson, seceded from the Church of Scotland with a number of others and joined the Burgher Church. They attended first Bethelfield Associate Church in Kirkcaldy, and later Kennoway Arnot Church (after 1750), before in 1792 a number of local residents applied to the Burgher Presbytery of Dunfermline to form a congregation in Buckhaven. This was accepted, and a congregation numbering around 90 was formed in 1794, moving into their own church on the Links in 1795. By 1869, now part of the United Presbyterian Church, the decision was taken to construct a new, larger, place of worship on Church Street. The old links church was converted into houses, and the whole area was buried under refuse from Wellesley colliery in the early 1900s.
Site of Buckhaven Links Church (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)
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.
St George’s Church, East Wemyss (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
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 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.
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)
Central Gospel Mission Revival Centre, Methil
In 1952 Alexander Smith listed a number what he described as Other religious bodies in Methil, including a Gospel Hall, the Central Gospel Mission and the Methil Town Mission. It is unclear where that organisation met, but a group with the same name have a premises on Herriot Crescent. They meet on Sunday and Monday, and host a choir and children and youth clubs.
In 1952 Alexander Smith listed a number what he described as Other religious bodies in Methil, including a Gospel Hall, the Central Gospel Mission and the Methil Town Mission. The Gospel Hall was found on Wellesley Road. It is unclear when it fell out of use, but the building was later used as a warehouse and is now empty. A new Gospel congregation can be found in the High Street of Lower Methil. Known as Innerleven Gospel Hall, they are a small group not affiliated to any other church, who meet on a Sunday and Tuesday.
In 1952 Alexander Smith listed a number what he described as Other religious bodies in Methil, including a Gospel Hall, the Central Gospel Mission and the Methil Town Mission. One of these was the Spiritualist Church, located on Methil Brae. It was closed by the 1970s the building was sold. It was demolished soon after and is now the site of a private house.
Shortly after the start of World War II a small chapel was built in Methil Docks to cater to the dock personnel and those involved in war production at the site. The chapel was demolished at the end of the war and its exact location is unknown.
Methil Evangelical Church (Source; Bess Rhodes)
In 1931, some 300 years after the closure of the parish church in Methilhill, a new Church of Scotland parish church was constructed on Chemiss Road, close to the site of the medieval church. As with the new Methil Parish Church on Wellesley Road, the opening of the new church was necessitated by the growing population of Methil, in particular the mining districts inland from the port. Originally known as Methilhill Parish Church, it was constructed in 1931 in a style described by Gifford as Cheap gothic. As hall was added in the 1960s and there was a major repair in 2007, by which time, following a union with the Denbeath Parish Church, it had been renamed Methil and Denbeath Parish Church. It remains in use today.
Methil and Denbeath Parish Church (Source: Bess Rhodes)
In the early 1920s the steady growth of the population of the town led the Church of Scotland to construct a new parish church in Methil to replace the West Church (1838). Land on Wellesley Road was gifted by the Wemyss family and the commission was given to Reginald Fairlie, who was also responsible for St Agatha’s Roman Catholic Church completed in 1923. Fairlie was influenced by medieval church architecture, and reputedly used the plans of the medieval parish church of Methilhill (excavated in the early 1920s) in his designs for both St Agatha’s and Methil Parish Church on Wellesley Road, although this influence is perhaps more obvious in the latter. The design includes nave, transepts and a choir separated from the body of the church by an organ screen and a cloister and chapter house. In 2012 there was a union between the church and that of Innerleven East, and since the merger it is now known as Wellesley Parish Church of Scotland.
Wellesley Parish Church, Methil (Source: Bess Rhodes)
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)
As a result of the large numbers of German sailors visiting Methil annually in the late nineteenth century a missionary from the German Church in Edinburgh (located in Leith) began to make periodical visits to the town. In 1898 the heads of that church decided to send a permanent missionary and they opened a church on Durie Street in 1900. The mission was suspended during World War I, and in the 1920s and 1930s the pastor was Gunner Belflage, a Swedish masseur who also opened a tea garden in Lundin Links. The mission was permanently closed at the outbreak of World War II, and is now a private house.
German Seaman’s Mission (Source: Vintage Lundin Links and Largo).
Following the Great Disruption in 1843, a quod sacra Free Church parish was set up in Methil, before a full mission was established in 1852. The mission initially met at the Salt Girnel, before in 1882 a full congregation was formed in Methil, and in 1890 a new church was constructed at the corner of Fisher Street and High Street at a cost of £700. In 1929 the congregation re-joined the Church of Scotland, changing its name to Methil East in the process. In 1942 there was a union between Methil East and the newly constructed Innerleven East Parish Church, and the congregation moved to the new church. The former Free Church was used as a workshop by a local taxi firm for some time, before it was demolished in 1978. No trace now remains.
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.
Scottish Coast Mission (Source: Places of Worship in Scotland)
From the early 1600s to 1838 Methil was part of the parish of Wemyss and the congregation attended the church in Easter Wemyss. Following an increase in the population in the early nineteenth century, a church was built in the High Street with room for 800 and at a cost of £1030. Following the Great Disruption of 1843, the church appears to have been shut, but was operational again by 1876. When a larger parish church was built in Methil in 1922-24 (now known as Wellesley Parish Church of Scotland) the West Church fell out of use. For some years it was used as a practice hall for the Wellesley Colliery band, and later as a storehouse until it was finally demolished in 1981.
The church of the medieval parish of Methil (spelt Methilkil or Methilhill) was located inland, on the banks of the River Leven about a mile and a half from its mouth. It is first recorded in 1207 and 1218. The archbishops of St Andrews gifted the patronage of the church of Methil to the Wemyss family in 1571, and the parish itself was annexed to Wemyss sometime between 1614 and 1638. The church was abandoned at this point, but some remains could still be seen as late as 1838, and an excavation in the 1920s found the foundations of a large structure. The graveyard remained in use even after the church was abandoned, and contains headstones from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Methil Hill Cemetery (Source: Bess Rhodes 2021)
On the coast a little way north of the burgh of Crail (near Crail Airfield) is land known as Kilminning. This name is thought to derive from the Gaelic for ‘Church of Monan’. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries human bones were often dug up here. Following the discovery of further human remains in the 1960s, archaeological investigation was undertaken which revealed a long-cist cemetery and a rectangular stone building – possibly the remains of a chapel. The combination of the place name, burials, and foundations strongly suggest that Kilminning was an early medieval religious site.
The coast at Kilminning. Remains of what may have been an early chapel have been discovered in this area. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
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.
The west gable of Crail Community Hall – formerly St David’s Church. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
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.
Houses on Rose Wynd in 2021. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
The site of the supposed ‘nunnery’ on Nethergate – perhaps in reality a medieval chapel. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
‘The Nunnery’ / Chapel Site on Nethergate
A plot of land on the south side of the Nethergate in Crail has long been known as ‘The Nunnery’. However, written records suggest that there was at no point a convent of nuns in Crail. The name is perhaps derived from an association with the nuns at Haddington Priory (who owned property in Crail and had for many years the patronage of the parish church). It is possible that there was in the Middle Ages a small chapel on this site. In the nineteenth century human remains were discovered in this area during work to level the road surface. Along the boundary of the property there is an old wall which has been tentatively dated to the sixteenth century. A stone with what appears to be a medieval consecration cross could be seen in this wall in the late twentieth century.
The site of the supposed ‘nunnery’ on Nethergate – perhaps in reality a medieval chapel. (Source: 1855 Ordnance Survey Map of Fife, sheet 20. Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/74426837)
‘Prior Walls’ / Chapel Site by the Sea
By the late eighteenth century there was a tradition in Crail that there had once been a medieval priory by the sea, a little to the south of what is now called Prior’s Croft. In reality the name probably arises from the land being owned by the nuns at Haddington Priory. However, there may have been a small chapel in this area in the Middle Ages. In the 1790s it was noted that there stood by the sea ‘a ruin evidently of great antiquity, the east gable of which is still standing’. This ruin bore ‘the name of the prior walls’. The gable (which according to a nineteenth-century writer had ‘Gothic windows’) was washed away by the sea during storms in about 1801. Some foundations remained visible into the 1860s, but by the twentieth century they too had been lost to coastal erosion.
The site of the supposed ‘priory’ ruins. (Source: 1895 Ordnance Survey Map of Fife and Kinross, sheet XXIII. Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/75533145)
The site now occupied by Holy Trinity Church has been a place of worship for several different denominations. A church was built here in the 1790s for Crail’s Burgher congregation. In 1847 the congregation became part of the newly created United Presbyterian Church. A few years later, at the end of the 1850s, the original Burgher church was demolished and replaced by the current building. The complex history of the divisions and unions within Scottish Presbyterianism meant that in 1900 the congregation then became part of the United Free Church, and the building became known as Crail West United Free Church. During the Second World War the Roman Catholic Church purchased the site – a project which was undertaken partly because of the significant number of Polish servicemen then stationed at Crail Airfield. It is today known as Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church and remains a place of worship.
Holy Trinity Church in 2021. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
When the Church of Scotland adopted Presbyterianism at the start of the 1690s a number of ministers refused to support the change. The minister of Crail, Alexander Leslie, was among those who opposed the re-establishment of Presbyterian government and worship. Leslie was removed from his position as minister at Crail parish church and instead set up a small Episcopal congregation. This new congregation built a chapel at Bankhead Brae, overlooking Crail Harbour. The Episcopal community was relatively sympathetic to the Jacobite cause, and when Crail was occupied by Jacobite forces during the winter of 1715 to 1716 they briefly held what the kirk session disapprovingly called ‘the English service’ in the parish church. The associations between Episcopalianism and Jacobitism would prove the undoing of the chapel at Bankhead. In 1745, during the turmoil of another Jacobite rising, supporters of Presbyterianism attacked the Bankhead Brae Episcopal chapel and tore it down.
Bankhead Brae in Crail. An Episcopal chapel was located in this area during the early eighteenth century. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
The parish church at Crail has been a place of worship since at least the twelfth century. During the reign of Malcolm IV (who died in 1165) revenues from the parish of Crail were given to the Cistercian nunnery at Haddington. The nuns at Haddington retained significant rights concerning Crail into the sixteenth century. Around 1517 Crail became a collegiate church – in other words it was served by a largely self-governing community of priests. Before the Reformation Crail parish church was lavishly furnished with statues, satin altar hangings, silver and gold crosses, and collections of religious books – all recorded in a surviving inventory. Meanwhile a famous cross known as the Rood of Crail was the focus of pilgrimage. Most of these items were destroyed in the summer of 1559 when John Knox and other Protestant activists descended on Crail. From this point onwards the parish church became the scene of Protestant worship. However, the religious changes were not embraced by everyone. In the 1560s John Melville, the new Protestant minister of Crail, faced considerable disruption to services in the parish church, with members of the congregation threatening to drag him from the pulpit by his ears. Religious controversy continued in Crail throughout the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although disagreements became increasingly focused on which type of Protestantism should be adopted. In 1648 James Sharp was appointed minister of Crail – he would go on to become archbishop of St Andrews before being murdered by religious opponents. By the early 1800s much of the parish church was in poor repair and the east end had largely fallen out of use. Major rebuilding work took place in the nineteenth century, and further alterations were undertaken in the 1960s. However, significant sections of the medieval church survive, with parts of the tower probably dating from around 1200.
Crail Parish Church in 2021. Marks from the changing rooflines of the church over the centuries can be seen on the tower and end wall of the nave. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews.)
There appears to have been a castle at Crail by the middle of the twelfth century. In 1359 the castle chapel is described as being dedicated to St Ruffinus – which is thought to be a Latinised form of St Maolrubha (an early medieval saint who was popular in north-west Scotland). There are a number of references to the chapel at Crail Castle in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, including in 1512 when a rent from Drumrack was being used ‘to support divine service in the chapel of St Maolrubha in the castle of Crail’. By the time of the Reformation the castle had fallen into disrepair and in 1563 David Spens of Wormistoun obtained permission to rebuild it. The castle chapel is briefly mentioned in 1620 but then slips out of the written record. By the early eighteenth century Crail Castle was itself in ruins. Today a small section of masonry in Castle Garden is all that remains of this former residence and fortification.
A section of old masonry which perhaps formed part of Crail Castle. (Source: William Jack / University of St Andrews Library, WMJ-EN-115-2.)
During the First World War an airfield was built at Crail, but the site was abandoned following the end of hostilities. At the start of the Second World War Crail was once more brought into military use and expanded to become an important base for aircraft from the Royal Navy. Both men and women served at Crail Airfield and a chapel was built for these service personnel. The chapel had a stained glass window paid for by Wrens and sailors based at Crail in memory of their comrades who lost their lives in World War Two. Following the war the Royal Navy removed most of its aircraft from Crail, but the site continued to be used for military training until 1960. Much of the brick structure of the chapel still survives, although the building is now derelict.
A naval inspection at Crail Airfield in the early 1940s. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, GMC-5-16-17.)
United Secession Church, 52 North Street
The United Secession Church had its origins in the splits within the Church of Scotland in the eighteenth century. The congregation worshipped for some years in the two burgher churches on South Street, but in the 1820s moved to what is now 52 North Street. This remained a place of worship until the 1860s when the congregation relocated to Hope Park Church.
The former United Secession Church on North Street. (Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
St Salvator’s College was established in the 1450s by Bishop James Kennedy. The new university college was dedicated to Christ the Saviour, and was intended to resist heresy and increase understanding of ‘divine wisdom’. Kennedy wished to create a college along the lines of those at Oxford and Cambridge, and to this end constructed a large complex of buildings including a dining hall and cloister. Kennedy’s foundation was both a religious and an educational institution. During the Middle Ages worship in the college chapel lay at the heart of life at St Salvator’s. In those days the chapel was lavishly furnished with statues (including a large silver image of Christ the Saviour), paintings, and altar hangings of cloth of gold. Few of these treasures survived the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. In the summer of 1559 academics were forced to watch as religious images were burned by Protestant activists determined to purge St Andrews of ‘idols’. St Salvator’s ceased being a place of worship at this time, and in 1564 was described as ‘a void house’. However, in the eighteenth-century St Salvator’s once more became a place of worship as the congregation of the parish church of St Leonard relocated here. In 1904, after a legal dispute, the university authorities removed the parishioners of St Leonard’s and took over the running of the chapel. St Salvator’s remains the focus of the main religious services of the University of St Andrews to this day.
St Salvator’s Chapel in about 1767. Some of the original windows have been partly blocked up, others are covered with shutters. The medieval stone roof can still be seen. (Source: University of St Andrews Library, OLI-11.)
The building now known as St Rule’s Church originally served as St Andrews Cathedral. The church was probably built on the orders of Bishop Robert during the early twelfth century, as part of his effort to modernise worship in St Andrews. Indeed, twelfth-century sources note that before Bishop Robert the main church in St Andrews ‘was very small’. Bishop Robert’s building work was not universally popular, and he had some difficulties raising the necessary funds. The resulting church shows the influence of Norman architecture, and it has been suggested that masons from Yorkshire were employed in its construction. St Rule’s has an impressively tall tower, which can be seen some distance out at sea. For much of the Middle Ages there was a choir to the east of the tower (the remains of which can still be seen) and a nave to the west of the tower (which had already been demolished by the late sixteenth century). Yet even with the nave St Rule’s was not an exceptionally large church. It was probably this lack of space which led the canons of St Andrews to begin work on a much bigger Cathedral in the 1160s. St Rule’s was increasingly sidelined, and became known as ‘the old church’. Nevertheless, the seal of St Andrews Cathedral Priory retained an image of St Rule’s Church into the sixteenth century. Following the Reformation St Rule’s ceased to serve a religious purpose. By the 1780s there were concerns about the stability of St Rule’s Tower, and the Barons of the Exchequer gave money for repairs. This is thought to be the earliest example of government funding for heritage conservation in Scotland.