St. Andrews Cathedral and Priory

Location: The Pends, St Andrews KY16 9QL
Opening times: 1 April to 30 September, daily 9.30am – 5.30pm; 1 October to 31 March, Friday to Monday 10.00am – 4.00pm; closed Tuesday – Thursday; CLOSED 25, 26 December and 1, 2 January (Closes 2.00pm Christmas Eve) .
Entry: Free entry, donation appreciated.
Access: Parking on street or in town car park, charges may apply.

My next stop in St. Andrews is the town’s eponymous and spectacularly ruined cathedral and priory. Like St. Andrews Castle it is a place I have not been for decades, but in this case not for want of trying. It always seemed to be closed when I was in town, either because the cathedral / priory doesn’t open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays out of season or due to danger from falling masonry. There was still some maintenance work being carried out today but nothing that prevents the cathedral being open to the public. What’s more, the guy at the gate informed us of a tour at 3pm and if we joined that we would also have access to St. Rule’s Tower.

*The east gable of the cathedral (left) and St. Rule’s Tower (right).*

This tower was part of St. Rule’s Church and although it looks more recent than the cathedral it in fact predates it, being built around 1130 on the site of an eighth century monastery. St Rule, also known as St. Regulus, was a monk from Patras in modern day Greece. He was warned – by an angel, no less – that Emperor Constantine planned on taking the relics of St. Andrew to Constantinople. These consisted of three fingers of the righthand, an arm bone, a kneecap, and a tooth. Rule didn’t want Constantine getting his hands on the bones for reasons unknown, so fled with them in a boat. He is said to have let the waves determine his destination, and that he would build a church dedicated to St. Andrew wherever he landed. That turned out to be the small Pictish settlement of Kilrymont on the Fife coast, which that eventually grew into the town of St. Andrews. A rather more mundane theory is that the relics were brought north by Bishop Acca of Hexham Abbey.

*The 33m tall tower of St. Rule’s most likely served both as a lighthouse to ships at sea and a beacon calling pilgrims to St. Andrews.*

By 1158 a larger church was deemed necessary, both to house the growing monastic community and to provide a more prestigious home for the relics of one of the Apostles. Work commenced on the cathedral in 1160 and when completed in 1318 it was the largest building in Scotland. It served as the headquarters for the church in Scotland and, thanks to the relics of an actual Apostle, was a major pilgrimage site.

The west front was built three times. It was first completed in 1272, but was blown down by a fierce storm that same year. The second west front was in place in time for the cathedral’s 1318 consecration, but was destroyed by a fire in 1378. The third and final version was completed in 1416. *I think the perfect cathedral photograph would have been a shot looking through the entrance archway to the twin towers in the east, but the area was closed of for maintenance.*

Standing at the crossing looking towards the west front. In this years prior to its completion the cathedral was the scene of two historic royal parliaments. Edward I of England held one there in 1304, during which he declared Sir William Wallace an outlaw. Five years later, King Robert the Bruce held his first ever parliament on the cathedral. He returned for the cathedral’s consecration in 1318, which, legend has it, Bruce celebrated by riding his horse up the aisle. Another royal connection is the cathedral serving as the venue for the wedding of James V and Mary of Guise in 1538.

The ruins of the chapter house (left), which was the administrative centre of the cathedral. It was the favoured resting place of the priors who served here, as evidenced by the five graves in the photograph above. According to our guide Niall, the sealed coffin still contains its original inhabitant. The photo on the right shows one of the oldest known graves, located in what was once the south transept. The writing is now illegible, but the cross on the slab’s upper two-thirds and the skull at the foot of the cross make clear the slab’s purpose.

This double-arched fourteenth century gatehouse is known as the Pends, and was originally the main entrance in the walled enclosure surrounding the cathedral. Today it adorns a one-way street leading to the harbour and the East Sands beach.

The Reformation inevitably put an end to the cathedral and priory. In 1559 the townspeople attacked the cathedral and destroyed everything they deemed ‘Popish'(left), spurred on by a typically rabble-rousing sermon delivered by John Knox (right) in the town’s Holy Trinity church. The cathedral and priory than fell to ruin and , like the castle, became a source of building material.

*A view of the town from St. Rule’s Tower. The cathedral’s cross-shaped layout can be clearly seen, as can St. Andrew’s castle in the top right quarter of the photograph.*

*The view from the tower looking to the harbour and East Sands beach. My family stayed in the caravan park on the distant right for a week’s holiday in 1977.*

*A night time shot taken on a previous visit in 2022.*

Destination or Diversion?

Annie and I took the tour, which lasted about an hour, and then had a wander around the grounds ourselves. At the time of writing the cathedral museum and shop are only open for an hour a day (why this is the case I didn’t find out) and we missed it, but had they been open I could probably have added an extra 30 to 45 minutes to our visit. All of which is to say St. Andrews Cathedral and Priory is a destination, one that could be doubled with a visit to the castle, a wander round the town, some time on the beaches, or some combination of them all.

Destination or Diversion?

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