Religious sites in United Kingdom
Neath Abbey
Neath Abbey was a Cistercian monastery, located near the present-day town of Neath. It was once the largest abbey in Wales. Substantial ruins can still be seen, and are in the care of Cadw. Neath Abbey was established in 1129 AD when Richard I de Grenville, one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan, gave (3,200 ha of his estate in Glamorgan, Wales, to Savigniac monks from western Normandy. The first monks arrived in 1130. F ...
Founded: 1129 |
Location:
Neath, United Kingdom
Town Church
Originally known as Sancti Petri de Portu, many regard the Town Church as the Cathedral Church and the finest in the Channel Islands. The first mention of the church in official documents was in 1048 when it is thought to have been given to the Abbot of Marmoutier by William of Normandy. It is likely that the original building was made of wood. The current building was built over a 200 year period with the chancel complet ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Guernsey, United Kingdom
Duddingston Church
Duddingston Kirk is a Parish Church, located adjacent to Holyrood Park. The church was built in or around 1124 by Dodin, a Norman knight, on land granted to Kelso Abbey by King David I of Scotland. As originally built, the church consisted of the chancel, nave and square tower. The traditional pattern of an east-west axis was adopted. The original entrance on the south wall includes a particularly fine example of Scoto-No ...
Founded: c. 1124 |
Location:
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
St Mary's Church
St Mary"s Church is a parish church in Brecon. It appears to have been built as early as the latter end of the 12th, or beginning of the following century, but the present structure is not of that early date. The eastern window of the chancel is Gothic of the middle age, and the prevailing style of its architecture indicates that it was not erected till after the year 1015. None of its decorations or pillars date to ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Brecon, United Kingdom
St Machar's Cathedral
St. Machar is said to have been a companion of St. Columba on his journey to Iona. A fourteenth-century legend tells how God told Machar to establish a church where a river bends into the shape of a bishop"s crosier before flowing into the sea. The River Don bends in this way just below where the Cathedral now stands. According to legend, St Machar founded a site of worship in Old Aberdeen in about 580. Macha ...
Founded: 14th century |
Location:
Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Arbroath Abbey
Arbroath Abbey was founded in 1178 by King William the Lion for a group of Tironensian Benedictine monks from Kelso Abbey. It was consecrated in 1197 with a dedication to the deceased Saint Thomas Becket, whom the king had met at the English court. It was William"s only personal foundation — he was buried before the high altar of the church in 1214. The Abbey, which was the richest in Scotland, is most fa ...
Founded: 1178 |
Location:
Arbroath, United Kingdom
St Macartin's Cathedral
St. Macartin"s Cathedral stands on high ground overlooking the town of Enniskillen. It was completed in 1842 as St. Anne"s Parish Church but rededicated as St. Macartin"s Cathedral in 1923. It incorporates elements of a former church building and has a 45 m tower and spire. The tower houses a peal of ten bells, which can also be chimed to play tunes. The three manual tracker action organ consists of thirty- ...
Founded: 1842 |
Location:
Enniskillen, United Kingdom
St. Helier Church
St Helier's Church, known as the Town Church, is one of the 12 parish churches of Jersey. Helier was a Belgian saint who lived as a hermit on an islet in St Aubin's Bay, about three quarters of a mile off the south coast of Jersey. In AD 555 he was killed by pirates, beheaded by their leader who feared his men would be converted by Helier's preaching. In consequence Helier soon came to be venerated by the Islanders, and e ...
Founded: 11th century |
Location:
Jersey, United Kingdom
Falkirk Old Parish Church
medieval Old Parish Church is located in the centre of Falkirk, and may have been founded as early as the 7th century. The church was largely rebuilt in the 19th century, though the 18th-century steeple was retained. Some time after the sixth century the speckled church or Faw Kirk was founded, it is from this church that the town of Falkirk takes its name. Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland, is also said to have estab ...
Founded: c. 1450 |
Location:
Falkirk, United Kingdom
St Mary's Church
The present day St Mary"s Church dates back to the 13th century, although it is speculated that there might have existed an earlier church of St Mary. The building is constructed from stone, with a slate roof. Two original windows remain in the south wall of the building, the remainder are 19th century replacements. The tower located to the north east of the building dates from the middle of the 14th century, and cu ...
Founded: 13th century |
Location:
Pembroke, United Kingdom
St Cadoc's Church
Caerleon is the historically important site of the Roman legionary fortress of Isca Augusta. St Cadoc"s Church stands over the principia (headquarters), where the legionary standards were kept and statues of the Roman emperors venerated. The earliest surviving part of the church dates back to just after the kingdom of Glywysing was overrun by the Normans during the twelfth century and is thought to be the work of H ...
Founded: 15th century |
Location:
Newport, United Kingdom
Govan Old Parish Church
The current church building in Govan was constructed in 1888, although the site is one of the oldest places of Christian worship in Scotland. Unusually, the axis of the church was turned to orientate north-south rather than the traditional east-west orientation, but this allowed the main door to face south to the main street. It is believed that the site's earliest Christian activity began sometime in the 6th century AD. ...
Founded: 1888 |
Location:
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Inchcolm Abbey
Inchcolm Abbey is a medieval abbey located on the island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. The Abbey, which is located at the centre of the island, was founded in the 12th century during the episcopate of Gregoir, Bishop of Dunkeld. Later tradition placed it even earlier, in the reign of King Alexander I of Scotland (1107–24), who probably had some involvement in the island; he was apparently ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Inchcolm, United Kingdom
Isle of May Priory
The Isle of May Priory was a community of Benedictine monks established for 9 monks of Reading Abbey on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth. It had been founded by 1153, under the patronage of David I of Scotland. The priory passed into the control of St Andrews Cathedral Priory in the later 13th century, and by 1318 had been relocated to Pittenweem (see Pittenweem Priory). Mary of Guelders, bride of Jam ...
Founded: 1153 |
Location:
Isle of May, United Kingdom
St Peter and St Paul's Church
St Peter and St Paul"s Church in the village of Mottistone, Isle of Wight, dates from the 12th century. It was built by Brian de Insula, lord of Mottistone Manor. Much of the current building is from the 15th century. The Cheke chapel was added in the 16th century, by the Cheke family who became lords of the manor in 1300. The chancel was reroofed in 1862, with timber from the Bermudan barque Cedrene which was wrecke ...
Founded: 12th century |
Location:
Newport, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom
Brecon Cathedral
Because of the characteristic round shape of its churchyard, the Brecon cathedral is thought to be on the site of an earlier Celtic church, of which no trace remains. A new church, dedicated to St. John, was built on the orders of Bernard de Neufmarché, the Norman knight who conquered the kingdom of Brycheiniog in 1093. He gave the church to one of his followers, Roger, a monk from Battle Abbey, who founded a priory on t ...
Founded: 13th century |
Location:
Brecon, United Kingdom
St Mary's Church
St Cynfelin (also known as St Matu) is reputed to be the founder of St Mary"s Church in Welshpool, during 'the age of the saints in Wales' in the 5th and 6th centuries. The church was originally built c. 1250, but only the lower courses of the tower now remain from that date. The current building is largely as rebuilt or restored in 1871 by George Edmund Street. The nave was rebuilt in the 16th century, ...
Founded: c. 1250 |
Location:
Welshpool, United Kingdom
Italian Chapel
The Italian Chapel is a highly ornate Catholic chapel on Lamb Holm. It was built during World War II by Italian prisoners of war, who were housed on the previously uninhabited island while they constructed the Churchill Barriers to the east of Scapa Flow. Only the concrete foundations of the other buildings of the prisoner-of-war camp survive. It was not completed until after the end of the war, and was restored in the 19 ...
Founded: 1943 |
Location:
Orkney, United Kingdom
Newport Cathedral
Newport Cathedral, also known as St Woolos Cathedral, is the seat of the Bishop of Monmouth. The name 'Woolos' is an English corruption of Gwynllyw, the 5th-century Welsh saint who first founded a religious establishment on the site. An early wooden church is known to have stood on the site from sometime during the Welsh Age of the Saints. This was rebuilt in stone in the 9th century indicating the importance of the cult ...
Founded: 9th century AD |
Location:
Newport, United Kingdom
Inchmahome Priory
Inchmahome Priory is situated on Inchmahome, the largest of three islands in the centre of Lake of Menteith. The priory was founded in 1238 by the Earl of Menteith, Walter Comyn, for a small community of the Augustinian order (the Black Canons). The Comyn family were one of the most powerful in Scotland at the time, and had an imposing country house on Inch Talla, one of the other islands on the Lake of Menteith ...
Founded: 1238 |
Location:
Aberfoyle, United Kingdom