St Andrews Cathedral, St Andrews, United Kingdom

The Cathedral of St Andrew was built in 1158 and became the centre of the Medieval Catholic Church in Scotland as the seat of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and the Bishops and Archbishops of St Andrews. It fell into disuse and ruin after Catholic mass was outlawed during the 16th-century Scottish Reformation. It is currently a monument in the custody of Historic Environment Scotland. The ruins indicate that the building was approximately 119 m long, and is the largest church to have been built in Scotland.

The west end was blown down in a storm and rebuilt between 1272 and 1279. The cathedral was finally completed in 1318 and featured a central tower and six turrets; of these remain two at the east and one of the two at the western extremity, rising to a height of 30 metres. On the 5th of July it was consecrated in the presence of King Robert I, who, according to legend, rode up the aisle on his horse.

A fire partly destroyed the building in 1378; restoration and further embellishment were completed in 1440.

In June 1559 during the Reformation, a Protestant mob incited by the preaching of John Knox ransacked the cathedral; the interior of the building was destroyed. The cathedral fell into decline following the attack and became a source of building material for the town. By 1561 it had been abandoned and left to fall into ruin.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

Graham Aitken (5 months ago)
Greatly enjoyed visiting St Andrews Cathedral today. Stunning setting and very knowledgeable staff who went out of their way to help and inform. The grounds, including what would have been the interior of the main part of the cathedral are free to explore but some areas fenced off for safety/covid reasons. Well worth paying the small fee to access the visitor centre which has the pick of fascinating remnants of the many ages and uses of the Cathedral over the centuries. Normally this would also entitle you to access the St Rules tower but this is currently closed. I would really like to thank the superb staff on site (really wish I got your names!) for making this such a memorable visit. I will definitely be back with my family one day.

macedonboy (5 months ago)
Visited back in September. Once Scotland's greatest church building. Now it's a ruin, but what a postcard picture perfect ruin. The east and west towers are two of the greatest structures still standing and the isolated remains served to magnify the brilliance of the Gothic architecture. The ground of cathedral are free to enter, you only have to pay if you want to visit the museum. The ticket would normally get you into St Rule's Tower as well, but that's not possible right now due to social distancing rules. The museum is not extensive, but does exhibit some of the best preserved elements from the ruin, history of the building and local history. Some of the best exhibits in the museum are the coffins which for me was the bizarre fascination with displaying death.

Paul Roach (6 months ago)
Pretty good but not able to achieve all the answers to the kids trail due to areas being closed off. Staff were very helpful.

Alex Freeman (6 months ago)
Beautiful Cathedral. Found some clues as to where Captain Avery's treasure is. Turns out he was working with Thomas Tew on something. Not sure what. Couple of hired mercenaries about the place called shoreline though. Not nice guys. Just make sure to avoid them. Brilliant piece of Scottish history.

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Lednice Castle

The first historical record of Lednice locality dates from 1222. At that time there stood a Gothic fort with courtyard, which was lent by Czech King Václav I to Austrian nobleman Sigfried Sirotek in 1249.

At the end of the 13th century the Liechtensteins, originally from Styria, became holders of all of Lednice and of nearby Mikulov. They gradually acquired land on both sides of the Moravian-Austrian border. Members of the family most often found fame in military service, during the Renaissance they expanded their estates through economic activity. From the middle of the 15th century members of the family occupied the highest offices in the land. However, the family’s position in Moravia really changed under the brothers Karel, Maximilian, and Gundakar of Liechtenstein. Through marriage Karel and Maximilian acquired the great wealth of the old Moravian dynasty of the Černohorskýs of Boskovice. At that time the brothers, like their father and grandfather, were Lutheran, but they soon converted to Catholicism, thus preparing the ground for their rise in politics. Particularly Karel, who served at the court of Emperor Rudolf II, became hetman of Moravia in 1608, and was later raised to princely status by King Matyas II and awarded the Duchy of Opava.

During the revolt of the Czech nobility he stood on the side of the Habsburgs, and took part in the Battle of White Mountain. After the uprising was defeated in 1620 he systematically acquired property confiscated from some of the rebels, and the Liechtensteins became the wealthiest family in Moravia, rising in status above the Žerotíns. Their enormous land holdings brought them great profits, and eventually allowed them to carry out their grandious building projects here in Lednice.

In the 16th century it was probably Hartmann II of Liechtenstein who had the old medieval water castle torn down and replaced with a Renaissance chateau. At the end of the 17th century the chateau was torn down and a Baroque palace was built, with an extensive formal garden, and a massive riding hall designed by Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach that still stands in almost unaltered form.

In the mid-18th century the chateau was again renovated, and in 1815 its front tracts that had been part of the Baroque chateau were removed.

The chateau as it looks today dates from 1846-1858, when Prince Alois II decided that Vienna was not suitable for entertaining in the summer, and had Lednice rebuilt into a summer palace in the spirit of English Gothic. The hall on the ground floor would serve to entertain the European aristocracy at sumptuous banquets, and was furnished with carved wood ceilings, wooden panelling, and select furniture, surpassing anything of its kind in Europe.

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