A ‘characterful church’

ELIE is a small town in the East Neuk of Fife, one of a series of small ports along the north shores of the Firth of Forth. All were until the 18th century important trading and fishing centres.

St Monans, Pittenweem and Anstruther remained significant boatbuilding and fishing centres into the 20th century. The Fife Coast railway (opened in 1863) brought holiday traffic from both east and west central Scotland, encouraging the establishment of Elie as a popular holiday and retirement centre.

Elie had been founded in 1589 as a Burgh of Barony under the lairds of Ardross, an estate to the north-east of the little town. It lies between St Monans and Pittenweem, and has a good natural harbour. A small improved harbour was constructed in the early 19th century, but trade did not develop as hoped. Elie’s western neighbour, Earlsferry, was the Fife terminus of a ferry across the Forth. It became a Royal Burgh in 1541, but during a storm its harbour was filled with blown sand, and never recovered. The twin settlements were united as a police burgh in 1865, and a fine links golf-course was laid out at Earlsferry. In the mid-1890s Francis Groome’s Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland described Elie as having been ‘in bygone times a place of some importance’. It retains a few antique mansions in a street near the beach, but mainly consists of modern well-built houses’. Groome went on to write that ‘It has for a long time been a place of considerable resort for summer sea-bathing, and is even claimed by some as one of the best health resorts, particularly in winter, of any place in Scotland’. The growth of the East Neuk towns as holiday resorts was greatly aided by the opening of the Forth Bridge in 1890, allowing express train services to be run both from Edinburgh and from Glasgow. Train services on the Fife Coast line ended in 1965, but Elie and Earlsferry remain popular resorts and retirement places.

Before the Reformation what is now the parish of Elie was part of the parish of Kilconquhar, which belonged to the Benedictine nunnery of North Berwick. As the population of the area grew, in 1639 William Scott of Ardross, acting as Trustee for his father William Scott of Elie, built a church in Elie, which was granted a parish, carved out of the parish of Kilconquhar, on September 11 1641. At the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 the minister of Elie stayed in the Established Church. Some of his parishioners petitioned the new Free Church to establish a congregation, which they did in 1844. With the growing popularity of Elie as a ‘fashionable health resort’ a new Free Church was built in 1887, named the Wood Memorial Free Church after a local benefactor. This joined the United Free Church in 1900 and the Church of Scotland in 1929, becoming the Wood Memorial Church of Scotland. At the same time the 1639 church was renamed Elie Old Parish Church. These congregations united in 1949 as Elie Parish Church, worshipping in the 17th-century building. In 1977 the Elie congregation was linked with that of Kilconquhar and Colinsburgh.

The present T-plan parish church is substantially the 1639 building, with a tower added in 1726 by John Anstruther. The south-facing windows were remodelled in 1831, when the interior was recast, with a plaster-vaulted ceiling. The original outside stairs to galleries were replaced in 1855 by internal stairs. In 1905 the eastern porch and north-eastern vestry were added by Peter MacGregor Chalmers. Stained-glass windows, including two by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, were relocated from the Wood Memorial Church. This characterful church is centrally-placed, a focal point in the little town, which is still a delight to visit.