Browse Items (658 total)

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…

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…

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…

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…

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’.…

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…

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…

The west end of the former Livingstone Hall. (Source: Open Virtual Worlds / University of St Andrews)

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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’…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Current use: residential.

Permanently closed/derelict.

Converted to residential.

Now a community Hall.

Tayport Parish Church on Queen Street was built in the 1840s for a Free Church congregation. It has an impressive Victorian Gothic frontage. Following the union of the United Free Church with the established church in 1929, the congregation became…

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…

Tayport Episcopal Church was established in the 1890s. The church is dedicated to St Margaret of Scotland and was designed by Major Thomas Martin Cappon, who worked on a number of churches in North-East Fife. The church has a late nineteenth-century…

The origins of the United Free Church on King Street go back into the nineteenth century. Work began on a church on this site in the 1840s, although there have been significant changes to the building in the succeeding 180 years. It remains a place…

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…

Boarhills Church was founded in the 1860s. The building was designed by George Rae. When the church was being constructed several stone cists were supposedly found – implying that the site may have had a religious purpose in the Early Middle Ages. In…

A Free Church congregation was established at Strathkinness in the 1840s during the Great Disruption. In the 1860s they built a church on Main Street in Strathkinness. The Free Church was converted into a community hall in the 1930s, as following the…

Strathkinness Parish Church was built in the 1860s. The building underwent major repairs in the 1930s, following the union between the village’s Church of Scotland and Free Church congregations. In the 1950s two stained glass windows from St…

Current use: Residential.

Current use: residential.

A Free Church congregation was established at Gauldry in the 1840s. The site of the church is clearly marked on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey (published in 1855). Supposedly, the church building was converted from an old weaver’s shop –…

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…

Balchrysty and its surroundings on the eighteenth-century Roy Military Survey.