Winter Road Trip Drive To On History Visit To St Adrian's Church West Wemyss Fife Scotland

Tour Scotland 4K travel video of a Winter road trip drive, with Scottish music, from the harbour area to St Adrian's Church on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to West Wemyss, Fife. St Adrian's is at the northern end of West Wemyss Churchyard which opened in 1703 and is reached by red gravel paths leading from the gates in the north and east sides of the boundary wall. The architect of the present St Adrian's was Alexander Tod. The money for the building was donated by the Wemyss family to provide a place of worship for the villagers of West Wemyss. The village itself was granted burgh of barony status in 1511, bearing the name from the Wemyss family who lived in Wemyss Castle. The harbour would become a major export point for coal by the late 17th century. The ships brought back imports of wood, iron and flax from the Baltic Countries. The industry, which saw trade with England and The Low Countries, started to struggle once the new docks were opened in Methil further along the Fife coast. Gradually, the demand for the harbour began to fall and it went into decline. The harbour has since been filled in and part of the old village restored. William Angus Knight, Professor of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews University, editor and biographer of William Wordsworth, lived here as a child from 1844. The surname Wemyss was first found in Fife, where they held a family seat from very ancient times as Lords of the Castle of Wemyss, so named from the Gaelic word Uamch, a cave, derived from the lands and cliffs in which caves abound on the seashore. Saint Adrian of May, sometimes given as Magridin was a martyr-saint of ancient Scotland, whose cult became popular in the 14th century. He is commemorated on 3 December. He may have been a bishop of Saint Andrews. Little is known of the life of this Scottish saint and martyr. He is held by some to have been an Irish monk and bishop, with the Gaelic name of Ethernan. Officially, the Scottish winter runs from the 21st of December through to the 20th March. All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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