Burntisland Parish Church (also known as St Columba's, Burntisland) is a church building in the Fife burgh of

Burntisland Burntisland ( , sco, also 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. It was previously known as Wester Kingho ...

, constructed for the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland. The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Reformation of 1560, when it split from the Catholic Church ...

in 1592. It is historically important as one of the first churches built in Scotland after the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, with a highly distinctive and apparently original square plan. It is

Category A listed This is a list of Category A listed buildings in Scotland, which are among the listed buildings of the United Kingdom. For a fuller list, see the pages linked on List of listed buildings in Scotland. Key The organization of the lists in th ...

for its architectural and historical importance. In 1601 the church was the location of a meeting of the

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the sovereign and highest court of the Church of Scotland, and is thus the Church's governing body.''An Introduction to Practice and Procedure in the Church of Scotland'' by A. Gordon McGillivray, ...

which proposed to King

James VI James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

of Scotland that they work on a new Bible translation. When James became King James I of England he was able to devote resources to the production of what would ultimately become the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...

History

The port of

had grown during the 16th century and was made a

royal burgh A royal burgh () was a type of Scottish burgh which had been founded by, or subsequently granted, a royal charter. Although abolished by law in 1975, the term is still used by many former royal burghs. Most royal burghs were either created by ...

in 1568; due to this growth and increased sense of civic pride, the townspeople decided to build a new church. This replaced an earlier building at Kirkton, a mile to the north of Burntisland.

Architecture

The building is notable for its square design: the interior is 18m square with four arched piers reaching in diagonally from the corners to form a 6m square in the centre. Various models for it have been suggested, mainly in the Low Countries, but no candidate has been found to predate it, and it is therefore probably an original Scottish design. It incorporates a gallery with a separate exit, for sailors to leave the service when the timing of the tide dictated that it was time to sail. The tower was rebuilt by Samuel Neilson in 1748. Significant renovations were carried out by David Vertue in 1822; he enlarged the windows and removed many of the old pews. The architect

Malcolm Fraser John Malcolm Fraser (; 21 May 1930 – 20 March 2015) was an Australian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983, holding office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Fraser was raised on hi ...

described its distinctive design as "a radical representation of democracy and the freedom of man to communicate directly with God." Henry Kerr suggests symbolism in its structure: the church is built high up on a rock, and its four walls lean in on the tower, which represents the "strength and safety" of the Church.

Interior decoration

It is decorated inside with carved wooden panels, many of which relate to the town's maritime history, depicting ships, shipowners, and nautical trades.A History of Everyday Life in Scotland, 1600 to 1800, edited by Elizabeth Foyster, Christopher Whatley, p296 As well as sailors, there were also areas for the guilds of schoolmasters, tailors, hammermen, maltsters, and bakers. A painted panel in the west gallery from 1930 commemorates the 800th anniversary of the old church at Kirkton. The 1606 Magistrate's Pew (formerly known as the Burntisland Castle Pew) in the northeast corner was built for Robert Melville of Rossend. In 1907

Robert Rowand Anderson Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, (5 April 1834 – 1 June 1921) was a Scottish Victorian architect. Anderson trained in the office of George Gilbert Scott in London before setting up his own practice in Edinburgh in 1860. During the 1860s his ...

supervised renovation of this and other parts of the interior. The bell was cast by Isobel Meikle in 1708. The organ was paid for by Fife-born industrialist

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...

. The church was extensively renovated in the 1990s.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Church website
Church of Scotland churches in Scotland Churches completed in 1592 Burntisland