St Fillan's Church Pittenweem / Pittenweem Relief Church / Parish Church Hall
Burntisland Parish Church, East Leven Street
The first written records for Leuchars Parish Church date from the 1180s. However, there may have been Christian activity here at an earlier date. The eastern end of the church has a remarkably fine Romanesque apse and chancel, with elaborate external arcading. The church has remained in continuous use since the twelfth century. The octagonal bell tower was added in the eighteenth century, meanwhile most of the nave was rebuilt in the nineteenth century. Further work was carried out by Reginald Fairlie around the beginning of the First World War. Leuchars Parish Church has a number of memorials associated with the nearby RAF base. The parish of Leuchars is now united with Tayport, but as of 2023 remained a place of worship.
A Free Church congregation was established in Leuchars in the 1840s, in the immediate aftermath of the Great Disruption. During the 1890s the church was substantially rebuilt. In 1900 the congregation joined the United Free Church. Following the union of the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church in 1929 Leuchars did not require two churches, so the old Free Church was converted into a hall. It is now known as Henderson Hall and is home to a Masonic Lodge.
Forgan Old Parish Church / St Fillan's Parish Church
Balmerino Parish Church opened in 1811. Previously the residents of Balmerino had worshipped at an older church in Kirkton of Balmerino. In 1838 Balmerino Parish Church was described as ‘a plain building without any ornament’. However, in the 1880s the church was remodelled to provide more seating and additional exterior and interior decoration was added at this time. In the 1930s the Church of Scotland united Balmerino with the nearby congregation at Gauldry. Worship continued in both churches until the early twenty-first century. Balmerino is now united with the parish of Wormit.
The burial ground towards the southern edge of Kirkton of Balmerino reflects the site of the old parish church. According to local legend the parish church moved here from Balmerino Abbey in 1611 because the aristocratic family who then owned the abbey precinct ‘could not bear the noise of the psalms on Sunday’. The ‘Kirk of Balmerinoch’ is clearly marked on the early seventeenth-century map of Fife created by Robert Gordon (where it is shown in a similar position to the surviving burial ground). Around 1811 a new parish church was completed nearer to Bottomcraig and the church at Kirkton of Balmerino was abandoned. By the mid-nineteenth century the old parish church was marked on maps as ‘ruins’. The wider site continued in use as a graveyard – a function it still serves today.
Balmerino Abbey was founded in the 1220s by Queen Ermengarde and her son Alexander II. The new monastery at Balmerino was a Cistercian community, and was established with the assistance of monks from Melrose Abbey. Balmerino was a relatively small monastery and appears to have had some financial difficulties during the Middle Ages. It has been suggested that Balmerino struggled to compete for resources with the larger and richer religious houses at Lindores and St Andrews. On the evening of Christmas Day 1547 an English raiding party burned Balmerino Abbey, supposedly after Scottish forces had shot with hackbuts from the religious site. The extent of the damage done by the raiders is unclear, and by 1555 at least eight monks appear to have been living in the abbey. Soon afterwards, the Reformation rising of 1559 ended monastic life at Balmerino, although it is possible that the church continued to be used for parish worship until about 1611. Today the chapter house and a sixteenth-century residence are the most notable extant remains. As late as the 1780s stones from the abbey site were being removed for local building projects.
There seems to have been a parish church at Flisk as early as the 1170s. The medieval parish church survived into the late eighteenth century, before eventually being demolished and replaced by a new building constructed ‘near the site of the former’ church in about 1790. It was claimed that at the time of its demolition the medieval church had stood ‘for 500 years’. The new church was praised as ‘a neat edifice’ and had seats for 153 people. In the nineteenth century Flisk Parish Church was described as being ‘beautifully situated on the banks of the Tay’. In the early 1970s the congregation at Flisk became part of the combined parish of Creich, Flisk, and Kilmany. Worship appears to have ceased at Flisk around this date. The church is now roofless, although some conservation work has been undertaken. The churchyard has a number of notable tombstones, many of which predate the rebuilding of 1790.
East Flisk Chapel / Birkhill, Flisk Wood
There appears to be the remains of a chapel in the southern section of Flisk Wood. Its origins are uncertain. James Gordon of Rothiemay’s 1642 map of Fife appears to show two churches at Flisk. The western one is labelled ‘Flisk Kirk’ and appears to be on the site of the former Flisk Parish Church. However, the eastern site is simply labelled ‘Flisk’ and may be a representation of the chapel in Flisk Wood. In the 1840s there was visible in the woods ‘low ruins’ and an ‘enclosing wall’, which were thought to be associated with a former place of worship. By the 1950s it was noted that the foundations of ‘the chapel’ were ‘under turf’ meanwhile ‘the enclosing bank of the graveyard’ was apparently ‘earthen’ and had been used as a ‘tree-bank’.
Creich and Flisk Free Church was founded in the 1840s. The congregation was established by Dr Taylor, who had formerly been minister of Flisk Parish Church, but left the Church of Scotland during the Great Disruption of 1843. Following the union of the United Free Church with the Church of Scotland in 1929 worship appears to have ceased at this site. The former church is now ruined and is on the register for buildings at risk.
Ballinbreich Castle Chapel / Chapel Hill / Glenduckie Chapel, Ballinbreich
There is thought to have been a chapel located slightly to the east of the ruins of Ballinbreich Castle. In the 1840s it was noted that ‘the foundations of an ecclesiastical edifice’ could still be seen here. It is possible that this was the site of the medieval chapel of Glenduckie. If so, the chapel was already in existence in the 1450s and continued as a place of worship until at least the 1680s.
Dunbog Parish Church was constructed around 1803. It had seating for 200 people, and in the 1840s had on average about 135 communicants. At this time the minister of Dunbog described the church as being ‘in excellent repair’. Similarly the early nineteenth-century Topographical Dictionary of Scotland praised the parish church as being ‘a neat and well-arranged edifice’. The church was enlarged in the 1850s. It also had a tower and spire added in the 1880s. Dunbog Parish Church ceased to serve a religious function in the 1980s and around the 1990s was converted into a dwelling.
Today all that is visible of Dunbog’s old parish church is a small abandoned graveyard near Dunbog House. There was a church on this site from at least the twelfth century through to the beginning of the nineteenth century. For much of the Middle Ages the church was appropriated to Arbroath Abbey (who benefited from much of the parish revenues and controlled the appointment of the vicar). Dunbog old parish church survived the Reformation and is clearly marked on John Ainslie’s late eighteenth-century map of Fife. In the 1790s the church building was described as in ‘pretty good order’. However, in 1803 the congregation moved to a newly built church located a little further away from Dunbog House.
The origins of the ruined chapel at Ayton are unclear, although it has (probably incorrectly) sometimes been thought to be the same site as a chapel granted to Arbroath Abbey in the 1170s. A church is shown at Ayton on James Gordon’s manuscript map of Fife (created in the 1640s) and on Joan Blaeu’s map of Fife (published in the 1650s). The surviving ruins appear to be early modern and have a carved stone armorial panel with the date 1683. Ayton Chapel was already abandoned in the nineteenth century when it was depicted as a ruin by the Ordnance Survey. There was formerly a burial ground associated with the chapel.
Joan Blaeu’s map of Fife with detail of Ayton or ‘Aitoune’. (Source: National Library of Scotland, https://maps.nls.uk/atlas/blaeu/browse/92)
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)
Baptist Church, North Side of High Street
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.