Undiscovered Scotland

 

The extensive remains of St Bridget's Church stand just above the shoreline at the head of Dalgety Bay, an inlet in the north shore of the Firth of Forth. They also stand at the very eastern edge of the settlement of Dalgety Bay.

Go west from St Bridget's and you find the next two miles or more of coast lined by housing developments that have appeared since the 1960s. These extend north to merge into the large Donibristle Industrial Estate, beyond which is the A921 "coast" road from Inverkeithing and the Forth Road Bridge to Aberdour. Dalgety Bay is a newcomer to the local scene, a housing-led development on the site of a disused military airfield and the grounds of the long-derelict Donibristle House. Its presence does, however, make the discovery of St Bridget's Church all the more unexpected and all the more delightful.

The origins of St Bridget's Church date back the better part of 850 years. "The Church at Dalgetty with its appurtenances" was first mentioned in a Papal document dated 11 March 1178. The church (possibly a rebuild of the church mentioned in 1178) was consecrated in 1244 by David de Bernham, the Bishop of St Andrews and dedicated to Saint Bridget, also known as Saint Bride.

When originally built, St Bridget's would have been at the heart of the small community of Dalgety. The church continued in use through the Reformation, and there are signs of the galleries that would once have helped the church accommodate the local population during the typically Presbyterian services of the day.

By 1830 the village of Dalgety had disappeared and the main coast road had moved inland to the line of today's A921. By this time St Bridget's was structurally unsound, and no longer in the right place to serve the needs of a population pulled north by the coal mining industry. The church was therefore unroofed, and a replacement built half a mile north. St Bridget's was simply allowed to become overgrown and ruinous, until eventually passing into the care of Historic Environment Scotland, who have restored it to the fascinating building you can see today.

In essence, St Bridget's is no more than a simple rectangular church, with no distinction between the nave and the chancel. This simple core has been added to on a number of occasions over the centuries, however, and the end result is deceptively complex, looking from some angles less like a church than a fairly upmarket house of the 1600s.

One set of complicating factors are the two burial isles on the north side of the church and another on the south side, all built for important local families. Then there is a set of stone steps up the east end gable, added to give access to a (long since removed) wooden gallery within that end of the church. But oddest of all is the two storey structure, almost like a miniature tower house, attached to the west end of the church. This is the Dunfermline Aisle, built for the Earl of Dunfermline, the Chancellor of the Kingdom, in the very early 1600s. The ground floor was a burial vault, while the upper floor provided comfortable accommodation for the family, plus a viewing window to allow them to benefit from the church service without having to mingle with the ordinary folk in the rest of the church.