Crichton Collegiate Church is situated about south-west of the hamlet of Crichton in

Midlothian Midlothian (; ) is registration county, lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh council ar ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Origins and Pre-Reformation

The site may have been the location of an old Christian shrine and about 1440

William Crichton, 1st Lord Crichton William Crichton, 1st Lord Crichton (died 1454) was an important political figure in the late medieval Kingdom of Scotland. Life The son of Sir John Crichton of Crichton, William Crichton is first attested to as one of the Scots noblemen an ...

Lord Chancellor of Scotland The Lord Chancellor of Scotland, formally titled Lord High Chancellor, was an Officer of State in the Kingdom of Scotland. The Lord Chancellor was the principal Great Officer of State, the presiding officer of the Parliament of Scotland, the K ...

started to build a church there. On 26 December 1449, William Crichton, 1st Lord Crichton opened the church "''Out of thankfullness and gratitude to Almighty

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

, our Lord

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

Christ Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...

, the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

St. Kentigern Kentigern (; ), known as Mungo, was a missionary in the Brittonic Kingdom of Strathclyde in the late sixth century, and the founder and patron saint of the city of Glasgow. Name In Wales and England, this saint is known by his birth and baptis ...

and All Saints''", with the consent of his son, James of Frendraucht and confirmed on the 29 December by James Kennedy,

Bishop of St Andrews The Bishop of St. Andrews (, ) was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of St Andrews in the Catholic Church and then, from 14 August 1472, as Archbishop of St Andrews (), the Archdiocese of St Andrews. The name St Andrews is not the town or ...

. Like many other

collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons, a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, headed by a dignitary bearing ...

es, Crichton was built for the use of the local lord, and a Provost, eight

Prebendaries A prebendary is a member of the Catholic or Anglican clergy, a form of canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in particular seats, usually at the back of the choir s ...

, two choir boys and a Sacrist were appointed to pray for the souls of the Crichton family. The Provost was granted the tiends and

tithe A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Modern tithes are normally voluntary and paid in money, cash, cheques or v ...

s of the prebends, the Rectory of Crichton and the Temple lands appertaining to Crichton. The church was built in a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

and Romanesque

cruciform A cruciform is a physical manifestation resembling a common cross or Christian cross. These include architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described as having a cruciform ...

style with a large central tower; the nave was used as the place of worship for the poor people. However the Crichton family supported the claimant

Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany (7 August 1485), was a Scottish prince and the second surviving son of King James II of Scotland. He fell out with his older brother, King James III, and fled to France, where he unsuccessfully sought help. In 1 ...

, in the 15th century, fell out of favour with the Scottish Crown and the Crichton lands were forfeited. During the

Scottish Reformation The Scottish Reformation was the process whereby Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland broke away from the Catholic Church, and established the Protestant Church of Scotland. It forms part of the wider European 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Fr ...

of 1560 the glass was taken from the windows, the floor converted back to earth and the medieval stone tracery destroyed. The chancel roof was still extant but the church was a ruin and considered unusable for services.

Post Reformation

By 1569 it was being used as the parish

kirk Kirk is a Scottish and former Northern English word meaning 'church'. The term ''the Kirk'' is often used informally to refer specifically to the Church of Scotland, the Scottish national church that developed from the 16th-century Reformation ...

(church) and a minister, Adam Johnston, was ordained to lead the service. By the 1580s, major restoration work began, though the nave was said to be ruinous, as it is to this day. In 1641, by an Act of Parliament, Crichton Church was declared to be the parish church for all time. Though there was more restoration and adaptation in 1729 it was considered to have been carried out "badly". More work in the 1820s helped to bring the old church back to life, but it was not until the end of the 19th century that the church was fully restored, by the Edinburgh architects Hardy & Wright. Stained glass windows made by the Edinburgh company Ballantine and Gardener (1898), new oak pews and a pipe organ built by the Glasgow company Joseph Brook were installed (1899). The Church of Scotland closed the church in 1992 and the Crichton Collegiate Church Trust acquired the property. The Trust restored the organ, stained glass windows, lighting, walls, roof and the tower in 1998.

Post Reformation Ministers

* 1569 Adam Johnston * 1639 Gideon Penman * 1682 Andrew Donn * 1690 Matthew Selkirk * 1729 Charles Primrose File:Crichton Collegiate Church, Crichton.jpg, viewed from the corner of the graveyard

Today

The T-shaped remains are no longer used as a parish church by the Church of Scotland and is in the care of the Crichton Collegiate Church Trust based in nearby Pathhead. It is used for Christian weddings and funerals, instrumental and choral concerts, other cultural events and is available for visiting. Edinburgh-based classical record label

Delphian Records Delphian Records is an Edinburgh-based independent classical record label, founded in 2000 by two students of the University of Edinburgh, Paul Baxter and Kevin Findlan with start-up funding from two private individuals, and support from the Pr ...

use the Church for many of their recordings, notably those of

The Marian Consort ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

and guitarist

Sean Shibe Sean Shibe ( ; born 1992) is a classical and electric guitarist from Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He is of English and Japanese ancestry. He studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (and was the youngest student to enter the then Royal Scotti ...

. The church is used for inter-denominational services about six times a year. Crichton is category A listed building.

Location

Crichton itself is west of

Pathhead Pathhead () is an area of Kirkcaldy, in Fife, Scotland. Pathhead was an independent village before it was incorporated into the Royal burgh of Kirkcaldy. In Jan Blaeu's map of Scotland from the 17th century reference is made to the village of P ...

and south of Scotland's capital city,

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. The church is reached by leaving the A68 road at the north end of Pathhead and turning on to the B6367 minor road at Crichton on a single-track lane signposted

Crichton Castle Crichton Castle is a ruined castle near the village of Crichton in Midlothian, Scotland. It is situated at the head of the River Tyne, south of the village of Pathhead, and the same distance east of Gorebridge. Constructed as a tower house in ...

. Before reaching the castle car park, on the left, is the church, situated at . Crichton Collegiate Church in Spring

References

External links

Crichton Collegiate Church website

Scottish Collegiate Churches

More photographs of Crichton
from

Geograph Geograph Britain and Ireland is a Web application, web-based project, begun in March 2005, to create a freely accessible archive of geographically located photographs of Great Britain and Ireland. Photographs in the Geograph collection are cho ...

{{Coord, 55.8438, -2.9902, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Category A listed buildings in Midlothian Listed churches in Scotland Churches in Midlothian Collegiate churches in Scotland