Browse Items (658 total)
An engraving of James Francis Edward Stuart (also known as the Old Pretender). In normal circumstances James would have been king of Scotland and England but legislation was passed banning Roman Catholics from the throne. (Credit: National Galleries of Scotland)
An engraving of King Charles II by William Fairthorne. (Credit: National Galleries of Scotland)
AnstrutherAnstruther /ˈænstrəðər/ (Locally Ainster /ˈɛnstər/ Scottish Gaelic: Ànsruthair) is a small coastal resort town in Fife, Scotland, situated on the…
Anstruther Baptist Church (2007) (Source: © Copyright 2021, SCHR Ltd)
Anstruther Church, exterior, from south east (Source: R. Fawcett)In 1641 Anstruther Easter was separated from Kilrenny and became the smallest parish by area in Scotland at the time. Construction of a church begun…
Anstruther Easter Parish Church (Source: Bess Rhodes 2021)
Anstruther Easter, St Adrian’s (Source: © Copyright Richard Sutcliffe and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)
Anstruther Erskine United Free Church (2007) (Source: © Copyright 2021, SCHR Ltd)
Anstruther Evangelical Church (2007) (Source: © Copyright 2021, SCHR Ltd)
Anstruther St Nicholas, 1844, Taylor (Source: R. Fawcett)
Anstruther Wester (Source: Bess Rhodes 2021)The parish church of Anstruther Wester is first documented in 1225 when it was under the patronage of the monks of Isle of May. Dedicated to St…
The Anti-Burgher Congregation in Dysart was formed in 1747. In the early years they met in an old barn before constructing their own church in 1763 at…
Arthropleura Tracks
Arthropleura Tracks, St AndrewsArthropleura tracks near St Andrews, a cast of them can be seen in MUSA, the Scores, St Andrews
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…
Balchrystie Roy mapBalchrysty and its surroundings on the eighteenth-century Roy Military Survey.
Ballinbreich Castle Chapel / Chapel Hill / Glenduckie Chapel, BallinbreichThere 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…
Balmerino Abbey, BalmerinoBalmerino Abbey was founded in the 1220s by Queen Ermengarde and her son Alexander II. The new monastery at Balmerino was a Cistercian community, and…
Balmerino Old Parish Church, BalmerinoThe burial ground towards the southern edge of Kirkton of Balmerino reflects the site of the old parish church. According to local legend the parish…
Balmerino Parish ChurchBalmerino Parish Church opened in 1811. Previously the residents of Balmerino had worshipped at an older church in Kirkton of Balmerino. In 1838…
Balmullo Anti-Burgher ChurchDuring the eighteenth century there was an Anti-Burgher congregation in Balmullo. The Anti-Burghers were one of a number of Protestant dissenting…
Balmullo Burgher ChapelIn the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a Burgher Chapel located on the north side of Balmullo, near what is now Smithy Lane. The…
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 church was formed following a visit to the town by James Haldane in 1812, and meetings were held thereafter in the building known as the…
In 1808 a Baptist chapel was founded in Newburgh. The congregation was established by Archibald McLean, who was leading figure in the Scotch Baptists…
In the early 1900s a revival moment swept through Fife and led to the formation Inverkeithing’s Baptist Church. A mission was first planted in the…
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…
Baptist Church, PittenweemCurrent use: Residential.
There has been a Baptist church on South Street since the early 1840s. When the original church opened it had seating for 250 people. The main space…
In 1802-03 a new parish church was constructed in Dysart and the congregation moved from St Serf’s in an event known locally as the year of the big…
Bishop George Hay was the Roman Catholic leader responsible for Lowland Scotland in the late eighteenth century. In 1779 Hay's house in Edinburgh was burned during anti-Catholic protests. (Credit: G.A. Periam / Wikimedia)
Bishop John Strain - the first Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh after the Roman Catholic hierarchy was reintroduced to Scotland. (Credit: Wikimedia)The Dominican order (or black friars) arrived in St Andrews during the fifteenth century. There are references to a Dominican place or house in St…
Boarhills Church / Chesterhill ChapelBoarhills Church was founded in the 1860s. The building was designed by George Rae. When the church was being constructed several stone cists were…
Braehead Evangelical churchBraehead church, 2023.
Braehead Evangelical Church, St MonansBraehead Church, 2023. (B. Rhodes)
Braehead Church was built in the 1870s. It originally housed a Free Church Congregation. Following the union of the United Free Church and the Church…
Bruce of Culross and Carnock Monument (Source: Bess Rhodes)
Buckhaven and Wemyss Parish Church (Source: Presbytery of Kirkcaldy, 2021)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,…
Buckhaven Baptist Church (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)
Buckhaven Baptist Church (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)The Buckhaven Christian Fellowship moved into the building on Institution Street in 1969. It had formerly been a United Free Church constructed in…
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…
Buckhaven Church of God (Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Church of God (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007).
Buckhaven Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Source: Amanda Gow, 2007)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…
Buckhaven Parish Church (formerly St Davids) (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Buckhaven Salvation Army (Source: Bess Rhodes, 2021)
Building Stones of Crail
Building Stones of St AndrewsA guide to the stones used to build St Andrews.
A walking guide to the stones that St Andrews is built with.
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…
During the 1730s a section of the Church of Scotland was unhappy with how ministers were appointed and the allocation of religious wealth. They formed…
In 1774 the Burgher congregation in St Andrews moved to a building in a yard on the north side of South Street. This property still exists and is now…
BurntislandBurntisland (/bɜːrntˈaɪlənd/, Scots: Bruntisland) is a former royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth.…
Burntisland Parish Church was one of the first churches built in Fife after the Reformation. It was designed for listeners to be able to focus on the preaching and formed a major departure from the traditional layout of churches. (Credit: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)
Burntisland Parish Church, East Leven Street
Burntisland Parish KirkDating from 1592, St. Columba's is the oldest pre-Reformation kirk still in use. In 1601, it was the venue of the General Assembly, held in the…
In 1517 the German academic Martin Luther published a series of criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther’s protest rapidly developed into an…
During the 1550s a number of Roman Catholics worked to bring improvements to the Church in Scotland. Fife was at the heart of this movement, which was…
Around 1070 King Malcolm III’s wife Margaret (later known as St Margaret of Scotland) brought a group of Benedictine monks to Dunfermline. The…
King David I (one of the sons of Margaret and Malcolm III) supported major changes in the Scottish Church. He increased the number of bishops and gave…
The late eleventh and early twelfth centuries saw a wish for monks to follow stricter rules. A number of new religious orders such as the Cluniacs and…
In the 1160s work began on a grand new cathedral at St Andrews (to replace the smaller church now known as St Rule’s which was then in use). The new…
The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries saw major building projects at many Fife churches. New churches were built and old ones remodelled. The…
The Reformation Parliament of 1560 saw Scotland officially declared a Protestant country. However, it took time to establish the structures of a…
c.300 – 400 Arrival of Christianity in ScotlandChristianity was introduced to Southern Scotland during the Roman occupation of Britain. It is possible that some Christian communities survived the…
The earliest evidence for Christianity in Fife comes from Christian symbols on carved stones and in caves. Early examples include the carvings on the…
The seventh and eighth centuries saw increasing conversion of the Picts (who then inhabited Fife and much of Scotland north of the Forth).…
In the ninth and tenth centuries a new monastic movement known as the Céli Dé arrived from Ireland. Céli Dé means servants of God and is sometimes…
The Caves of Caiplie, or the Coves as they are known locally, are found about 3 miles to the east of Anstruther. They are natural caves carved in the…
Caiplie Coves
Cardinal Gray's coat of arms on a window in St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh. (Credit: Sheila1988 / Wikimedia)In May 1930 Dysart House, first built in 1756, was sold to Mrs Elsa af Wetterstedt Mitchell, and a month later she gifted it to the trustees for the…
St Andrews Castle was once the home of the bishops of St Andrews. There seems to have been a castle on this site since at least the 1190s. We do not…
Bed of fossil tree (Lepidodendron) stumps in Carboniferous sequence near Cellardyke, Fife
The parish church of Cellardyke was constructed in 1882. Two years earlier the arrival of a new minister at the parish church of Kilrenny led to a…
Cellardyke Parish Church (Source: © Copyright 2021, SCHR Ltd)
Cellardyke RoseDeformation feature in Carboniferous sandstones near Cellardyke, Fife
Cellardyke Rose
Cellardyke Rose modelDeformation structure within the Carboniferous sandstones at Cellardyke, Fife
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…
Following the Great Disruption in 1843, the minister of Anstruther Easter, William Ferrie, joined the Free Church, taking around 300 of his…
Chalmers Memorial Church c.1890 (Source: Erskine Beveridge Collection)
Channel, Roome BayChannel cut into Carboniferous sandstones at Roome Bay, Crail
A chapel was recorded at Naughton in the twelfth century. It was linked to the medieval parish of Forgan. Both Forgan and the Chapel of Naughton were…
A chapel dedicated to St Denis/Denys, one of the patron saints of France, is thought to have been located at Pan Ha' in Dysart. Writing in 1794,…