St Andrews - Cathedral

St Andrews has played an important part in Scottish ecclesiastical history and this is evident from the wealth of churches and monuments in the town. According to legend St Regulus landed here in the fourth century with the bones of St Andrew - although it now seems more likely that the reliquary actually arrived in the eighth century. Soon the small town was an episcopal see.

About 1200, several churches were constructed in the town, including the huge cathedral and also the castle. By the 15th century St Andrews was the center of religious and spiritual power in Scotland and in 1472 it became the seat of the archbishop. Some 335ft/102m in length and 160ft/49m wide, the cathedral (built between 1160 and 1328) was once the largest church in Scotland. Robert I attended the consecration and 200 years later James V and Mary of Guise married here establishing the Franco-Scottish "Auld Alliance". Destroyed in June 1559, the cathedral's stonework was plundered and now only parts of the late Romanesque east front, a section of the west front, the southern side aisle and a gatehouse remain.