St Mary’s Chapel, West Wemyss

St Mary’s Chapel, 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.

sacredlandscapesoffife

Medieval

tt27@st-andrews.ac.uk

Site

228

15/11/2021

10/05/2023 11:39:28 am

1. William Fraser, Memorials of the family of Wemyss of Wemyss (Edinburgh, 1988), 2. ‘Wemyss Chapel Gardens’, Places of Worship in Scotland, Accessed 29 October, 2021, http://scottishchurches.org.uk/sites/site/id/4629/image/13165/name/Wemyss+Chapel+Gardens+Wemyss+Fife

cm x cm x cm

current,56.139428693863266,-3.0974435801908844;

St Mary’s Chapel, West Wemyss

TEXT

Building

478

1560

Catholic

Wemyss