Jump to content

St Andrews Cathedral

From Catholicism Wiki
St Andrews Cathedral
The Cathedral of St Andrew
East tower of St Andrews Cathedral and St Rule's Tower
East tower of St Andrews Cathedral and St Rule's Tower
56°20′24″N 2°47′15″W / 56.3400°N 2.7875°W
Location The Pends, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9QL
Country Scotland
Denomination Catholic
History
Status Ruined
Founded 1158
Founder Ernald
Dedication Andrew the Apostle
Dedicated 1318
Architecture
Architectural type Church
Style Romanesque, Gothic
Groundbreaking 1158
Completed 1318
Closed 1561
Specifications
Length 391 ft (119 m)
Width 168 ft (51 m)
Height 100 ft (30 m)
Administration
Archdiocese Archdiocese of St Andrews
Scheduled monument
Official name St Andrews Cathedral and Priory and adjacent ecclesiastical remains
Designated 12 February 1999
Reference no. SM13322

The Cathedral of St Andrew (often referred to as St Andrews Cathedral) is a ruined cathedral in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. It was built in 1158 and became the centre of the Medieval Catholic Church in Scotland as the seat of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and the Bishops and Archbishops of St Andrews. It fell into disuse and ruin after the Catholic mass was outlawed during the 16th-century Scottish Reformation. It is a monument in the custody of Historic Environment Scotland. The ruins indicate that the building was approximately 119 m (390 ft) long, and is the largest church to have been built in Scotland.

History

Founding and development

The cathedral was founded to supply more accommodation than the older church of St. Regulus (St. Rule) afforded. This older church, located on what became the cathedral grounds, had been built in the Romanesque style. Today, there remains the square tower, 33 metres (108 feet) high, and the quire, of very diminutive proportions. On a plan of the town from about 1531, a chancel appears, and seals affixed to the city and college charters bear representations of other buildings attached. To the east is an even older religious site, the Church of St Mary on the Rock, the Culdee house that became a Collegiate Church.

Work began on the new cathedral in 1158 and continued for over a century. The west end was blown down in a storm and rebuilt between 1272 and 1279. In 1304, the cathedral secured 20 oaks from the forest of Clackmannan to repair damage caused by the English army of Edward I.[1] The cathedral was finally completed in 1318 and featured a central tower and six turrets; of these remain two at the east and one of the two at the western extremity, rising to a height of 30 metres (100 feet). On the 5th of July it was consecrated in the presence of King Robert the Bruce, who, according to legend, rode up the aisle on his horse.

The cathedral was served by a community of Augustinian Canons, the St Andrews Cathedral Priory, which were successors to the Culdees of the Celtic church.

Twenty-four of the cathedral's canons, two-thirds of their number, died of bubonic plague in 1348.[1] A fire partly destroyed the building in 1378; restoration and further embellishment were completed in 1440.

Abandonment and ruin

In June 1559 during the Reformation, a Protestant mob incited by the preaching of John Knox ransacked the cathedral; the interior of the building was destroyed. The cathedral fell into decline following the attack and became a source of building material for the town. By 1561 it had been abandoned and left to fall into ruin.[2]

At about the end of the sixteenth century the central tower apparently gave way, carrying with it the north wall. Afterwards large portions of the ruins were taken away for building purposes, and nothing was done to preserve them until 1826. Since then it has been tended with scrupulous care, an interesting feature being the cutting out of the ground-plan in the turf. The principal portions extant, partly Norman and partly Early Scottish, are the east and west gables, the greater part of the south wall of the nave and the west wall of the south transept.

At the end of the seventeenth century some of the priory buildings remained entire and considerable remains of others existed, but nearly all traces have now disappeared except portions of the priory wall and the archways, known as The Pends.

St Rule's Tower

St Rule's tower is located in the cathedral grounds but antedates it, having served as the church of the priory up to the early 12th century. The building was retained to allow worship to continue uninterrupted during the building of its much larger successor. Originally, the tower and adjoining choir were part of the church built in the 11th century to house the relics of St Andrew. The nave, with twin western turrets, and the apse of the church no longer stand. The church's original appearance is illustrated in stylised form on some of the early seals of the cathedral priory. Legend credits St Rule (also known as St Regulus) with bringing relics of St Andrew to the area from their original location at Patras in Greece. Today the tower commands an admirable view of the town, harbour, sea, and surrounding countryside. Built in grey sandstone ashlar, and (for its date) immensely tall (33 m; 108 ft), it is a land- and sea-mark seen from many miles away, its prominence doubtless meant to guide pilgrims to the place of the Apostle's relics.[3] In the Middle Ages a spire atop the tower made it even more prominent. The tower was originally ascended using ladders between wooden floors, but a stone spiral staircase was inserted in the 18th century.

Architecture

The tower and its adjoining eastern chamber are part of a church that once extended further east; a later addition was also built onto the tower's west side. The walls are notably thin for their height and built of finely squared grey ashlar on a chamfered plinth. Corbel tables mark two separate building phases at the wall heads, showing that the tower originally stood exposed before being built up further.[4]

Arches

Three tall, slightly horseshoe-shaped arches are the tower's most notable feature: one each through the east and west walls of the tower, and one through the east wall of the adjoining chamber. The east tower arch, with nook shafts and bell-shaped capitals, shows no sign of later disturbance and is thought to be original. The west tower arch and the chamber's east arch, by contrast, are both later insertions (their masonry is not coursed in with the surrounding walls) and share a similar moulded, shafted design. The west arch is thought to have been cut to open into an enlarged nave; 18th-century repairs re-faced masonry around the eastern arch, though an earlier drawing of the site helps clarify its original form.[5]

In literature

St. Rule's tower features in Ethel Foster Heddle's novel A Mystery of St. Rules (1902),[6] and is referenced in John Buchan's novel The Free Fishers (1934).[7]

Burials

In the cathedral

Cathedral burial ground

Eastern Cemetery

See also

References

  1. Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Oram, Richard D. (2025), A Land Won from Waste: Scotland AD 400 - 1400, John Donald, Edinburgh, pp. 307, 332, 351 & 352, ISBN 9780859767194
  2. Back to citation "Historic scotland". Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  3. Back to citation "St Andrews Cathedral". Historic Environment Scotland. Retrieved 29 July 2026.
  4. Back to citation John Bilson, 'Wharram-le-Street Church, Yorkshire, and St Rule's Church, St Andrews', Archaeologia, vol. 73, 1923, pp. 55-72; N. M. Cameron, 'St Rule's Church St Andrews and early stone architecture in Scotland', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. 124, 1994, pp. 367-78; Ronald Cant, 'The building of St Andrews Cathedral,' in David McRoberts (ed.), The Medieval Church of St Andrews, GLasgow, 1976, pp. 11–12
  5. Back to citation A. A. M. Duncan, 'The foundation of St Andrews Cathedral Priory, 1140', Scottish Historical Review, vol. 84, 2005, pp. 1-37; Richard Fawcett, The Architecture of the Scottish Medieval Church, 1100-1560, New Haven and London, 2011, pp. 13-17, on which this description is closely based; Eric Fernie, 'Early church architecture in Scotland', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. 116, 1986, pp. 393-411; Stephen Heywood, 'The church of St Rule in St Andrews', in John Higgitt (ed.), Medieval Art and Architecture in the Diocese of St Andrews, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, XIV, Leeds, 1994, pp. 38-46; Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, Edinburgh, 1933, pp 228–30; H.M. Taylor and Joan Taylor, Anglo-Saxon architecture, Cambridge, 1965, vol. 2, pp. 711–13
  6. Back to citation Heddle, Ethel Forster (1902), A Mystery of St. Rules
  7. Back to citation Buchan, John (2009), The Free Fishers, Polygon, ISBN 9781846970658
Retrieved from "https://catholicism.wiki/index.php?title=St_Andrews_Cathedral&oldid=141643"