Browse Items (515 total)

Dysart (/ˈdaɪzərt/ Scottish Gaelic: Dìseart) is a former town and royal burgh located on the south-east coast between Kirkcaldy and West Wemyss in Fife. The town is now considered to be a suburb of Kirkcaldy. Dysart was once part of a wider estate…

Conducting electromagnetic surveying on the raised beaches at Kingcraig using a Geonics EM38

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…

In 1818 applied to join the In 1820 the Burgher Presbytery of Perth granted a group called the Managers of the Associate Society of Anstruther £20 to construct a church in the Backdykes area of Anstruther Easter. They had between 40 and 50 members…

Aerial view of the esker at St Fort

The Congregationalist Church in Anstruther was formed in around 1800, following preaching in the town by James Haldane and Joseph Rate in 1798. They met initially at 28 East Green, a weaver's shop owned by a Mr Thaw, known locally as the Tabernacle…

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.

Since 1993 Quaker meetings have been held in a Victorian house on Howard Place. The Society of Friends occupy the lower two storeys of the house, with meetings taking place in a simply furnished room on the ground floor. There has been a group of…

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…

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…

The Gospel Hall is in a former shop on the narrow section of Market Street. Christian Brethren (traditionally sometimes called Plymouth Brethren) have worshipped here since at least 1914. During the early twentieth century the Plymouth Brethren had a…

During the late Middle Ages an Observant Franciscan friary was located on a large plot of land between Market Street and North Street (where Greyfriars Garden now stands). The friary was founded by Bishop Kennedy in the mid-fifteenth century. The…

A Franciscan Friary was founded in Inverkeithing in the fourteenth century. The Greyfriars, as they were known from the colour of their cowls, were a significant presence in the burgh, with their buildings and gardens stretching from Queen Street…

The area now called Hallow Hill was once known as Eglesnamin. This name also has religious associations, with 'egles' appearing to be a Pictish word for a church. Hallow Hill may in fact be one of the oldest religious sites in St Andrews. There was…

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…

Holy Trinity Church features many interesting types of stone, including a beautiful alabaster and marble pulpit.

A guide to the different types of stone used to build Holy Trinity Church.

The parish of Holy Trinity is first recorded in the 1140s, when Bishop Robert was reorganising religious life in St Andrews. For centuries Holy Trinity was the main church for the residents of St Andrews. The church was originally located within the…

Since the early fifteenth century Holy Trinity Church has been located on South Street. The current site was given by Sir William Lindsay of the Byres for the citizens of St Andrews to build ‘a church in honour of the Holy Trinity with a row of…

Hope Park was built in the 1860s for the United Presbyterians, who had previously been worshipping in a house on North Street. The church was designed by the architects Peddie and Kinnear. The new church was originally towards the western edge of St…

Inverkeithing (/ˌɪnvərˈkiːðɪŋ/ Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Chèitinn) is a port town and parish, in Fife, Scotland, on the Firth of Forth. According to 2016 population estimates, the town has a population of 4,890, while the civil parish was reported to…

Inverkeithing Friary, Queen Street, Inverkeithing, Fife, Scotland

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…

Kincaple East raised beaches

Tim Kinnaird OSL sampling

Kincraig Point raised beach platforms

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…

This area between Kinghorn and Kirkcaldy has some pillow basalts as well as fossilised corals and crinoids.

A walking trail to see the Geology between Kinghorn and Kirkcaldy.

Kingsbarns has a variety of different fossils including 330 million year old millipede tracks. There are also fossilised shells and the imprints of ancient roots of trees called Lepidodendron which grew in Fife during the Carboniferous era.

Geological field guide to Kingsbarns Beach.

360 photosphere on the 4m raised beach to east of Kinkell Braes

Kirk, Anstruther Wester This fine old Kirk is now rather dilapidated and shored up in places. I suppose it's not in bad shape for something that has stood here for 764 years to date, well parts of it anyway, much of it was changed in a major…

Leuchars (pronounced /ˈluːxərs/ (About this soundlisten) or /ˈluːkərz/; Scottish Gaelic: Luachar "rushes") is a small town and parish near the north-east coast of Fife in Scotland. The civil parish has a population of 5,754 (in 2011) [1] and an area…

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…

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…

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…

The first version of Martyrs’ Church was built in the 1840s by a Free Church congregation (one of the groups that broke away from the Church of Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century). The congregation rapidly expanded, and in 1851 the building was…

In 1855 Robert Robertson, a local linen merchant, purchased a former inn and converted it into a Meeting House for the villagers of North Queensferry. The name evolved from Meeting House, to Preaching Station and eventually the Mission Hall. It…

The Memorial Fountain was built in 1897 and is dedicated to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. It is built of both grey and red granite.

Methil (Scottish Gaelic: Meadhchill)[2] is an eastern coastal town in Scotland. It was first recorded as "Methkil" in 1207, and belonged to the Bishop of St Andrews. Two Bronze Age cemeteries have been discovered which date the settlement as over…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Until the late nineteenth century the people of North Queensferry worshipped in Inverkeithing or Dunfermline. The first parish church was built in the village in 1878, belonging to the Free Church. The congregation joined the United Free Church in…