Browse Items (658 total)

Geological field guide to St Andrews.

St Andrews Cathedral was once the most important church in Scotland. It was the base for the country’s senior bishopric and housed the relics of Jesus’s disciple Andrew (the nation’s patron saint). The origins of St Andrews Cathedral stretch back…

St Andrews (Latin: S. Andrea(s); Scots: Saunt Aundraes; Scottish Gaelic: Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, 10 miles (16 kilometres) southeast of Dundee and 30 miles (50 kilometres) northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a…

St Andrew’s Church was built to replace a smaller Episcopal church (also dedicated to St Andrew) which once stood on North Street. The foundations for the new church were laid in 1867, and the church was consecrated (in other words officially blessed…

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…

In 1690 Scotland officially became a Presbyterian country, rejecting episcopacy (or the government of the church by bishops). Some Scots did not accept the changes, forming the origins of the Scottish Episcopal Church. There have been Episcopalians…

Current use: residential.

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…

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…

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…

Sampling the platform sections at Kingcraig point for OSL dating

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…

The Salvation Army started a corps in St Andrews in 1893. After some difficulties in the early years, there was a continuous Salvation Army presence in St Andrews from 1934 until 2003. During the 1980s the Salvation Army acquired a former house on…

This bay doesn’t actually have rubies, it’s named after the tiny red garnets in the sand which look a bit like rubies to the untrained eye. You might find some if you get down on your hands and knees sift through the sand.

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…

Overview of Kinkell Ness with Rock and Spindle

The Rock and Spindle is an ancient volcanic vent, and it has an excellent example of radial columnar jointing (it looks like spokes of a wheel) due to the way the magma cooled. The rock just to the north of the Rock and Spindle is believed to be a…

The Rock and Spindle geological site

Overview of raised beach platforms at Kingcraig near Elie, Fife

The site of the pre-Reformation Methil Parish Church, now part of Methilmill Cemetery.

Pittenweem Parish Church and Tolbooth

Pittenweem (/ˌpɪtənˈwiːm/) is a fishing village and civil parish in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 1,747.

Raised beach platforms at Kingcraig, nr. Elie, Fife

Our Lady Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea opened in 1939. The building was designed by the notable architect Reginald Fairlie – a comitted Catholic who had been born in Fife. Fairlie designed many significant buildings of 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…

During the nineteenth century the population of Newport-on-Tay grew significantly. In the 1860s a campaign developed for a parish church in Newport, rather than local residents having to walk out to Forgan Parish Church. Work began on a parish church…

A Congregational church was established in Newport-on-Tay in 1801. In the 1860s a substantial Gothic style church was built for the congregation at the foot of Kilnburn. It was designed by the architect David Mackenzie. Newport-on-Tay Congregational…

Newburn Parish Church was built around 1815, replacing a nearby medieval church. It was designed by the Largo architect Alexander Leslie. The New Statistical Account (for which information was gathered in the 1830s) describes Newburn as “commodious…

Newburn Parish Church was built around 1815, replacing a nearby medieval church. It was designed by the Largo architect Alexander Leslie. The New Statistical Account (for which information was gathered in the 1830s) describes Newburn as “commodious…

The converted parish church at Newburn.

There appears to have been a church at Newburn as early as the twelfth century, and perhaps some time before that. For much of the Middle Ages the parsonage of Newburn was appropriated by the Abbey of Dunfermline. Following the Reformation the church…

The ruins of Newburn Old Parish 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…

During the First World War the Royal Flying Corps established a presence at Leuchars. This subsequently became an RAF station. A military chapel dedicated to St Peter was established at the site. In 2015 the RAF handed over Leuchars to the army. It…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…