Parish Church On History Visit To Kingsbarns East Neuk Of Fife Scotland

Tour Scotland 4K late Autumn travel video of the Parish Church on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to Kingsbarns in the East Neuk of Fife. This Scottish Church was built around 1630, receiving substantial alterations between 1810 and 1811 at the hand of Robert Balfour. The church faces south towards The Square, the central focus of the village of Kingsbarns. It is located within a graveyard, which is surrounded by a substantial coped wall. The church itself is built on a T plan with a south tower and west porch. The body of the church is harled with a Scottish slate roof. The harling is degrading on all faces of the building, revealing rough courses of squared sandstone and some interesting rough snecking on the north elevation of the main cell. The tower is built from ashlar and is capped by a spire with alternating bands of square and fishscale slate. There is a clock in each face below a corbelled parapet. Robert Balfour was born about 1772, the son of a farmer of Kilmany, Fife. He is said to have worked as a mason in Edinburgh for the Adam brothers and later set up business in St Andrews. In August 1799 he petitioned for a piece of ground to the north east of Shore Bridge for a workshop and yard. He lived in Balfour House, The Shore, which appears as Shore Bridge House, St Andrews in the Census of 1851. He seems to have served on the Town Council in St Andrews but resigned in October 1804 and refused to accept office again in 1809 as he also did in 1823. He threatened interdict against the building of a slaughterhouse at Shore Bridge on 10 August 1850. He is said to have been responsible for several houses in St Andrews which show a marked influence of the Adams. He appears to have retired in the 1830s. In the 1851 Census he is listed as living in Shore Bridge House but gives his occupation as a farmer with 117 acres employing 4 ploughmen. He presumably retained his father's farm. In 1858 he is listed as a shareholder when the Western Bank of Scotland collapsed. Balfour died aged 97, almost blind, in 1867. All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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