Browse Items (658 total)

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

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…

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…

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…

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…

The chapel at Drumoig Vicarsford Cemetery is a remarkably fine Victorian Gothic structure, inspired by the design of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. It was built in the late nineteenth century as a memorial to Lady Leng and is non-denominational. The…

The old parish church of Culross lies around 800 metres to the north west of the burgh. It was first recorded in 1217 when it was gifted to the monks at the newly founded abbey in Culross. Most of the structure was built in the twelfth or thirteenth…

The Free Church in Culross was formed in 1846, and in the following year, with the support Mr Cunninghame of Balgownie, a church was built on the Low Causeway in the west of the town. A renewal of mining operations in the area around Culross in the…

Shortly after the Reformation, the presbytery, transepts choir and tower of the Abbey were converted into the parish church of Culross. This situation was formerly recognised by an Act of Parliament in 1633. In 1642 the church received a significant…

Culross (/ˈkurəs/) (Scottish Gaelic: Cuileann Ros, 'holly point or promontory') is a village and former royal burgh, and parish, in Fife, Scotland.

It has been suggested that there was a Culdee chapel at Balchrystie. The Old Statistical Account (compiled in the 1790s), claims that there were Culdees here in the time of Malcolm Canmore (r. 1058-1093). During the mid-eighteenth century the…

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…

Crail Parish Church in early September. This is a photo of listed building number 23244.

The parish church at Crail has been a place of worship since at least the twelfth century. During the reign of Malcolm IV (who died in 1165) revenues from the parish of Crail were given to the Cistercian nunnery at Haddington. The nuns at Haddington…

The rock at Crail is largely Carboniferous Sandstone and Shale, but a variety of types of rock have been used to build the village.

There appears to have been a castle at Crail by the middle of the twelfth century. In 1359 the castle chapel is described as being dedicated to St Ruffinus – which is thought to be a Latinised form of St Maolrubha (an early medieval saint who was…

During the First World War an airfield was built at Crail, but the site was abandoned following the end of hostilities. At the start of the Second World War Crail was once more brought into military use and expanded to become an important base for…

Crail Scottish Gaelic: (Cathair Aile) is a former royal burgh, parish and community council area (Royal Burgh of Crail and District) in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland.

During the twelfth century there was a parish church at Coultra. However, this appears to have been abandoned in the thirteenth century when the congregation moved to Balmerino – where they probably worshiped in the nave of the newly founded…

During the mid-nineteenth century a Congregational church was built on the east side of Bell Street. It was substantial Victorian stone building designed by the architects Andrew Kerr and Jesse Hall. The church closed in the 1960s, and was demolished…

A Congregational church was built on the north side of Market Street in 1807. The church had seating for 320 people. There were two entrances from the street and there appears to have been a gallery above the doorways. During the early nineteenth…

Local tradition records that Christianity was brought to Inverkeithing in around 500AD by a holy man called St Erat. An ancient well known as Heriot’s or Erat’s, after which nearby Heriot Street is also named, can be found close to the site of the…

During the early 2020s the Church of Scotland congregation at St Monans made the decision to worship at their church hall, rather than using the harder to access medieval church building. As of 2024, the church hall on Station Road is the main Church…

St Monans Parish Church Hall, 2023. (B. Rhodes)

In the 1930s the Christian Brethren leased a cottage on Greenside Place. This was subsequently converted into a hall for worship. The Christian Brethren used the hall until the early twentieth century. The property was then sold, and the building…

Current use: residential.

The chapel of Inverkeithing is first mentioned in the 1150s when it belonged to Abbey of Dunfermline. While it has been suggested that this chapel later became the parish church, the source notes that it was located outside of the burgh, so it is…

Joan Blaeu’s map of Fife with detail of Naughton or ‘Nachton’

The chapel of St Kentigern in Culross was founded in 1503 by Robert Blacadder, Archbishop of Glasgow (1484-1508). Kentigern, or Mungo as he is commonly known, was believed to have been born in Culross. According to the Vita St Kentigerni (composed in…

The chapel of St James first enters the documentary record in the early fourteenth century, but it was likely to have been founded sometime in the late twelfth or thirteenth centuries. It was a key station on probably the most important and well used…

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, George Muirhead noted the local tradition that the chapel had been part of a Dominican Friary. Cowan and…

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 appropriated to St Andrews Cathedral. The site of the chapel is uncertain, but it may have been on…

Channel cut into Carboniferous sandstones at Roome Bay, Crail

Following the Great Disruption in 1843, the minister of Anstruther Easter, William Ferrie, joined the Free Church, taking around 300 of his congregation with him. They built a small church in 1844 on a site in Hadfoot Wynd. In 1858 a larger,…

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…

Deformation structure within the Carboniferous sandstones at Cellardyke, Fife

Deformation feature in Carboniferous sandstones 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 split in the congregation, with the fisherfolk of Cellardyke joining the Free Church and forming their…

Bed of fossil tree (Lepidodendron) stumps in Carboniferous sequence near Cellardyke, Fife

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 know exactly when the castle chapel was built, but it is likely that there was a place of worship…

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 Sisters of the Carmelite Community. They established a closed community with room for 24 nuns. The…

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 rock face by sea action, which in places have been artificially enlarged. They have been long…

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 spelt as ‘Culdee’ in English. Communities of Céli Dé were established at St Andrews and Loch Leven, as…

The seventh and eighth centuries saw increasing conversion of the Picts (who then inhabited Fife and much of Scotland north of the Forth). Missionaries seem to have come from the island of Iona in the west, and from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of…

The earliest evidence for Christianity in Fife comes from Christian symbols on carved stones and in caves. Early examples include the carvings on the Skeith Stone (which was found near Kilrenny) and cross markings at Caiplie Caves. These carvings…

Christianity was introduced to Southern Scotland during the Roman occupation of Britain. It is possible that some Christian communities survived the departure of the Romans and the subsequent period of migration and political change.

The Reformation Parliament of 1560 saw Scotland officially declared a Protestant country. However, it took time to establish the structures of a Reformed Church across the nation. Fife was at the forefront of this movement. Local church courts, known…

The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries saw major building projects at many Fife churches. New churches were built and old ones remodelled. The parish churches at St Andrews and Cupar were rebuilt at this time. Late medieval bell towers survive…

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 cathedral was the largest roofed space constructed in Scotland in the Middle Ages. It took more than…

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 the Cistercians were founded, who led a more austere way of life. The Scottish royal family proved…

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 them oversight of dioceses organised in a similar fashion to Continental Europe. He also backed a…

Around 1070 King Malcolm III’s wife Margaret (later known as St Margaret of Scotland) brought a group of Benedictine monks to Dunfermline. The Benedictines were the commonest monastic order in Western Europe at that time. Over succeeding years…

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 backed by John Hamilton, the new archbishop of St Andrews. This period saw efforts to improve 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 international religious crisis, which would ultimately lead to the creation of the movement we now…

Dating 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 presence of King James VI, at which the need for a new translation of the Bible was suggested. The idea…

Burntisland (/bɜːrntˈaɪlənd/, Scots: Bruntisland) is a former royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to the 2011 census, the town has a population of 6,269.

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 faced in yellow harling. The congregation does not seem to have been particularly large. In 1793…

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 a break-away group known as the Secession Church. This then split again in the late 1740s, leading…

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…

A walking guide to the stones that St Andrews is built with.

A guide to the stones used to build St Andrews.