St Andrews
St Andrews is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 as of 2011, making it Fife's fourth-largest settlement and the 45th most populous settlement in Scotland.
The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle. The settlement grew to the west of St Andrews Cathedral, with the southern side of the Scores to the north and the Kinness Burn to the south. The burgh soon became the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, a position which was held until the Scottish Reformation. The famous cathedral, the largest in Scotland, now lies in ruins. St Andrews is also known globally as the "home of golf". This is in part because of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, founded in 1754, which until 2004 exercised legislative authority over the game worldwide. The Old Course of St Andrews Links is the most frequent venue for The Open Championship.
It is home to the University of St Andrews, the third oldest university in the English-speaking world and the oldest in Scotland. It was ranked as the best university in the UK by the 2022 Good University Guide, which is published by The Times and The Sunday Times. According to other rankings, it is ranked as one of the best universities in the United Kingdom. The Martyrs Memorial, erected to the honour of Patrick Hamilton, George Wishart, and other martyrs of the Reformation epoch, stands at the west end of the Scores on a cliff overlooking the sea. The civil parish has a population of 18,421. The town also contains numerous museums, a botanic garden and an aquarium.
Name and etymology
The earliest recorded name for the settlement occurs in 747 AD, when an Irish annal recorded the "death of Tuathalán abbot of Kinrymonth". The place-name represents the Old Gaelic word cenn plus an existing place-name, Rigmonad, itself containing ríg and monad, later calqued into Lowland Scots as "King's Muir". It has been conjectured that the Gaelic name represents an adaptation of a Pictish form, possibly *Penrimond. or *Pennrimonid. A variant referring specifically to the ecclesiastical site, Cell Rígmonaid, is evident from the twelfth century, and came to provide what outside Gaelic orthography was rendered Kilrymont. The modern Gaelic spelling is Cill Rìmhinn.The name St Andrews derives from the town's association with Andrew the Apostle, with the medieval church claiming to possess bones of the saint. According to legends evident from the twelfth century onwards, St Regulus brought the relics to Fife from Patras in Greece. The church at St Andrews claimed as a result to have custody of three fingers from the apostle's right hand, as well as an upper arm bone, knee-cap and a tooth. The genitive form "of St Andrew" in various languages is evident from the time of the foundation of the burgh in the 1140s. The Scots name for the burgh consisted of variations of Andrestoun until the fifteenth century, with St Andrews prevailing afterwards.
History
The first inhabitants who settled on the estuary fringes of the rivers Tay and Eden during the Mesolithic came from the plains in Northern Europe between 10,000 and 5,000 BCE. This was followed by the nomadic people who settled around the modern town around 4,500 BCE as farmers clearing the area of woodland and building monuments.During the Iron Age/Early Middle Ages, a fortified enclosure, potentially a hillfort, was established on East Balrymonth hill, a mile to the south of the town. Today, the outline of the defences are visible on some aerial images. It marks the oldest still extant structure in St Andrews.
In the mid-eighth century a monastery was established by the Pictish king Oengus I, traditionally associated with the relics of Saint Andrew, a number of bones supposed to be the saint's arm, kneecap, three fingers and a tooth believed to have been brought to the town by St Regulus. In AD 877, king Causantín mac Cináeda built a new church for the Culdees at St Andrews and later the same year was captured and executed after defending against Viking raiders.
In AD 906, the town became the seat of the bishop of Alba, with the boundaries of the see being extended to include land between the River Forth and River Tweed. In 943 Constantine II abdicated and took the position of abbot of the monastery of St Andrews.
The establishment of the present town began around 1140 by Bishop Robert on an L-shaped hill, possibly on the site of the ruined St Andrews Castle. According to a charter of 1170, the new burgh was built to the west of the Cathedral precinct, along Castle Street and possibly as far as what is now known as North Street. This means that the lay-out may have led to the creation of two new streets from the foundations of the new St Andrews Cathedral filling the area inside a two-sided triangle at its apex. The northern boundary of the burgh was the southern side of the Scores with the southern by the Kinness Burn and the western by the West Port. The burgh of St Andrews was first represented at the great council at Scone Palace in 1357.
St Andrews, in particular the large cathedral built in 1160, was the most important centre of pilgrimage in medieval Scotland and one of the most important in Europe. Pilgrims from all over Scotland came in large numbers hoping to be blessed, and in many cases to be cured, at the shrine of Saint Andrew. The presence of the pilgrims brought about increased trade and development. Recognised as the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, the town now had vast economic and political influence within Europe as a cosmopolitan town. The Scottish Parliament met in the town in 1304, when King Edward I, in his capacity as overlord of Scotland, came to be received by Bishop William de Lamberton. As many as 130 landowners turned up to witness the event ranging from Sir John of Cambo to Sir William Murray of Fort.
In 1559, the town fell into decay after the violent Scottish Reformation and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms losing the status of ecclesiastical capital of Scotland. Even the University of St Andrews was considering relocating to Perth around 1697 and 1698. Under the authorisation of the bishop of St Andrews, the town was made a burgh of barony in 1614. Royal Burgh was then granted as a charter by King James VI in 1620. In the 18th century, the town was still in decline, but despite this the town was becoming known for having links 'well known to golfers'. By the 19th century, the town began to expand beyond the original medieval boundaries with streets of new houses and town villas being built. Today, St Andrews is served by education, golf and the tourist and conference industry.
In 1951, The Masque of St. Andrews, which dramatised important events in the town's history, was staged in the Cathedral grounds as part of the Festival of Britain.
Governance
St Andrews is represented by several tiers of elected government. Prior to 1975 the town was governed by a burgh council, a provost and baillies. From 1975, St Andrews was administered by North East Fife District Council and Fife Regional Council. North East Fife District was abolished in 1996 when Fife Council became the unitary authority. Fife Council, based in Glenrothes, is now the executive, deliberative and legislative body responsible for local governance. The Scottish Parliament is responsible for devolved matters such as education, health and justice while reserved matters are dealt with by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.The Royal Burgh of St Andrews Community Council, meeting on the first Monday of the month in the Council Chamber of St Andrews Town Hall, forms the lowest tier of governance whose statutory role is to communicate local opinion to local and central government. The current chair is Mr Martin Passmore. The chair uses the honorary title of Provost of St Andrews on official and ceremonial occasions, this ancient title having been revived to mark the 400th Anniversary of the granting of Royal Burgh status to St Andrews in 1620 by King James VI & I. The first modern Provost was Mr Callum MacLeod.
In the early days of the United Kingdom, following implementation of the union of 1707, St Andrews elected one Member of Parliament to the United Kingdom Parliament. Following the implementation of the Reform Act 1832 St Andrews Burgh merged with Anstruther for the purposes of electing one MP to the United Kingdom Parliament. Following implementation of the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, there was one MP sitting for St Andrews Burgh.
St Andrews now forms part of the North East Fife constituency, electing one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by the first past the post system. The constituency is represented by Wendy Chamberlain, MP of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. For the purposes of the Scottish Parliament, St Andrews forms part of the North East Fife constituency. The North East Fife Scottish Parliament constituency created in 1999 is one of nine within the Mid Scotland and Fife electoral region. Each constituency elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament by the first past the post system of election, and the region elects seven additional members to produce a form of proportional representation. The seat was won at the 2016 Scottish Parliament Election by Willie Rennie, for the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
Demography
According to the 2001 census, St Andrews had a total population of 14,209. The population increased to around 16,680 in 2008 and 16,800 in 2012 The age of the population is much in line with the rest of Scotland. The age group from 16 to 29 forms the largest portion of the population. The median age of males and females living in St Andrews was 29 and 34 years respectively, compared to 37 and 39 years for those in the whole of Scotland.The place of birth of the town's residents was 87.78% United Kingdom, 0.63% Republic of Ireland, 4.18% from other European Union countries, and 7.42% from elsewhere in the world. The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 23.94% in full-time employment, 8.52% in part-time employment, 4.73% self-employed, 1.94% unemployed, 31.14% students with jobs, 9.08% students without jobs, 13.24% retired, 2.91% looking after home or family, 2.84% permanently sick or disabled, and 1.67% economically inactive for other reasons.