More Than Just Golf

In spite of what you might think based on the last two posts, there is more to St. Andrews than golf. Of course, there is St. Andrews University, the 3rd oldest university in the UK after Oxford and Cambridge. Like the others, the University of St. Andrews is spread out through a fairly large section of the city. We only walked down one street of the main part of the university but there were some beautiful old buildings.

We had a relaxing morning before heading to the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral. It was only about a 20-minute walk but, unfortunately, we got caught in a little bit of rain. It didn’t rain hard but we still got a little wet. Of course, since weather said no chance of rain, the umbrellas were still in the flat. The rain only lasted about 10 minutes, though, so it wasn’t too bad.

On our way to the Cathedral we passed the ruins of the Blackfriars Chapel which is all that remains of the Dominican Friary of St. Andrews. It was a Catholic Friary that was destroyed during the Protestant Reformation in the mid-16th century.

The Cathedral of St. Andrews was built in 1158 and was the center of medieval Catholic Church in Scotland. During the Reformation, the Catholic Church was outlawed and the Cathedral fell into disuse. BTW, contrary to what many people think, the Church of Scotland is not Catholic, it’s Presbyterian. Who knew??

By the size of the ruins, experts believe that the Cathedral was 390 feet long, which makes it the largest church to have ever been built in Scotland.

There was also an old cemetery. While some of the graves were old, there were also some headstones that were relatively new with dates up to the 1940s.

There was a Cathedral museum that had artifacts from the middle ages found during excavation of the site.

Most of the slabs and headstones had skull and crossbones engraved on them.

Part of the Cathedral, St. Rule’s Tower was built in the early 12th century to store the relics of St. Andrew.

A short walk from the Cathedral is St. Andrews Castle, another ruin. It was closed today but we were able to get some photos from the street. The Castle was from the late 12th century. It was destroyed and rebuilt many times during the Wars of Scottish Independence of the late 13th/early 14th centuries.

Between the Castle and the Cathedral was a large marshy area.

After seeing the ruins, we headed back to the town center, only about another 10-minute walk. After stopping at Superdrug to pick up more gauze pads (I brought quite a few with us but used them all on Peter’s face after he fell) we stopped for ice cream before heading home.

We had lunch at home and enjoyed a lazy afternoon. I napped for about an hour and Peter is still asleep, although I’m thinking about waking him up so he can sleep tonight.

Tomorrow we head north to Ballater where we’ll stay at a Hilton Garden Vacation Resort for the next 3 nights. On our way we have a few castles to visit. Should be fun.