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St Athernase Church

1185 establishments in Scotland12th-century church buildings in ScotlandCategory A listed buildings in FifeChurch of Scotland churches in ScotlandChurches completed in 1185
Churches in FifeLeucharsListed churches in ScotlandRomanesque architecture in Scotland
St. Athernase Church, Leuchars, Fife, Scotland
St. Athernase Church, Leuchars, Fife, Scotland

St Athernase Church is a Romanesque church located in Leuchars, Fife, Scotland. It is a Category A listed building and remains in use as a Church of Scotland parish church.The chancel and half-round apse date from the 12th century with the exterior featuring blind arcades with typical Norman arches. The church was granted by Ness son of William, Lord of Leuchars, to the canons of St Andrews in 1185. Around 1700 a belfry was added, and in 1858 restoration was carried out to the nave. The church is open to the public in summer, at other times by arrangement. Relics preserved inside include part of a 9th-century cross-slab found near the village (closely comparable to the large collection at St Andrews Cathedral), and three elaborate 16th century memorial stones of the Bruces of Earlshall, the local lairds. One of the latter shows a full length figure of a woman, naïve in execution, but valuable in documenting contemporary dress. The oft-mentioned dedication of the medieval church of Leuchars to St Athernase is actually an error. It arises from a nineteenth-century misreading of a list of church dedications in the Register of St Andrews Priory, a medieval manuscript now in the National Archives of Scotland. Folio 155v. has a list of churches dedicated, or re-dedicated, by bishop David de Bernham of St Andrews in the 1240s. The eighth church in this list is 'ecclesia sancti Johannis euangeliste et sancti Athernisci confessoris de Losceresch (the church of St John the evangelist and St Athernase the confessor). However the church of Losceresch is not the church of Leuchars, which in medieval sources is spelt Lochris, Locres etc., but the parish church of Lathrisk (now Kettle parish in Fife), whose early spellings are Losresc (1170s), Loseresch, Losseresc (1227) and such like. Athernase is the patron saint not of Leuchars but of Lathrisk. The patron of Leuchars is not known for certain, but some medieval sources indicate a local cult of St Bonoc, a name unknown outside the parish of Leuchars, and a chapel of St Bonoc, complete with chaplain, is known to have existed. "Athernase" may be an anglicised form of the name Itharnán, found also in Fife at Kilrenny, and on the Isle of May, an Irish missionary who "died among the Picts" in 669 according to the Annals of Ulster.

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St Athernase Church
Henderson Terrace,

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N 56.38263 ° E -2.88417 °
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Henderson Terrace

Henderson Terrace
KY16 0EL
Scotland, United Kingdom
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St. Athernase Church, Leuchars, Fife, Scotland
St. Athernase Church, Leuchars, Fife, Scotland
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St Andrews Rail Link
St Andrews Rail Link

The St Andrews Rail Link (StARLink) Campaign was established in 1989 with the aim of reconnecting Scottish town of St Andrews to the railway. The historical St Andrews Railway, which had connected St Andrews to the mainline via Leuchars Junction was closed on 6 January 1969. Unlike the earlier closure of the Anstruther & St Andrews Railway in 1965, the St Andrews Railway was not recommended for closure in the (1963) Beeching Report. The closure, ordered four years after Beeching's departure in 1965, was ordered by Richard Marsh, Minister for Transport in the 1964-1970 (Labour) government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and whilst some Beeching closures did take place after the departure of Beeching in 1965, the St Andrews closure was not an instance of such. The original reinstatement plan espoused by StARLink was simply a reestablishment of the historical Leuchars - St Andrews line but since the publication in 2012 of a report by Tata Steel Rail Consultancy StARLink now advocates an entirely new 21st-century layout with a twin-cord high-speed rail link travelling west and southwards via Cupar and northwards via Leuchars. StARLink has estimated that the railway could be reinstated for £76 million. A 2008 survey by StARLink of St Andrews residents and commuters found that 78% of those respondents who did not use buses would use the railway instead; the group had sent out 20,000 questionnaires in December 2007.This line has been identified by the Campaign for Better Transport as a priority 1 candidate for reopening.