he eventually rejoined the Free Church and it would have been very difficult

for him to have gone back to the Established Church again while Mr. McLeod

was still minister there. There were several other members of the congregation

who had also been members of the Free Church, had changed to the Estab-

lished Church and then returned to the Free Church. As Mr. McLeod had

already been in Strathkinness for thirty-two years in 1929 the assumption

must have been that he would not stay much longer, but he did, in fact, stay

until his death in 1935. ln 1935 the remaining United Free Church members

in Strathkinness joined the Established Church in Strathkinness and the Rev.

John Patterson became the first minister of the combined churches.

Before the first Relief Church was built in Strathkinness in 1801 the

inhabitants of the village either went to church in St. Andrews, or if they were

dissenters, they joined others walking to either Ceres or Auchtermuchty where

early dissenting meetings were held.

This Relief Church Building was the first building to be erected on Main

Street, or the Turnpike Road, as it was then called. By 1836 there was enough

demand from members of the Established Church in Strathkinness for the St.

Andrews Kirk Session to grant permission for a preaching station in

Strathkinness. People from the village would no longer have to go three miles

into St. Andrews to attend church, although they would still have to go there

for communion.

The preaching station used the same building which had recently been built

for a new school. The preachers were a succession of young men not always

ordained, but qualified to preach. In 1860 the parish was finally disjoined,

or separated, from the Parish of St. Andrews and St. Leonards, and became the

quoad sacra Parish of Strathkinness, which gave the church in Strathkinness

the right to deal with all religious matters within the new parish.

The first minister elected to the new church in Strathkinness was the Rev.

David Stewart ‘presently acting as missionary among them’. Remembering

the background to the Disruption of 1843, the Trustees were very careful to

ensure that Mr. Stewart was the choice of the congregation.

The building the church was sharing with the school proved to be inade-

quate for its needs, and as the cost of adapting it would be nearly as great as

building a new one, permission was given by the St. Andrews Presbytery to

build a new church. In 1864 a new church was built on land given by Mr.

John Whyte Melville.

One-tenth of the seats had been set aside as free sittings and the rent from

the rest of the seats amounted to £14.17.4. This, added to the total of £4.12.7

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