Tour Scotland 4K travel video, with Scottish music, of interior of the Cathedral on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to Brechin, Angus. Brechin Cathedral, which is now closed, was part of the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian in government. This means that there are no bishops in the Church of Scotland, and it also means that, technically at least, there are no cathedrals. There are, however, a number of buildings whose history and pre-Reformation status mean that they have retained the title of "cathedral" even if they do not fulfil the functions of a cathedral. Brechin Cathedral is one of them. The origins of Brechin Cathedral are thought to date back to the establishment of a chapel somewhere nearby by St Dubhoc or Duthoc in around 600AD. By the late 800s it seems that a religious order known as the Céli Dé, or Culdees, had set up a church in Brechin, possibly on the site of an earlier Pictish establishment. This first enters recorded history in 972 when King Kenneth II endowed lands and property to the religious community here.
Famous Scots from Brechin include;
Sir David de Brechin, died 1320, who was a Scottish knight who fought on both sides during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He was the son of Sir William de Brechin by Elena Comyn, daughter of Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan and Elizabeth de Quincy. Sir William was the son of Henry, an illegitimate son of David of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon. He fought in the Earl of Surrey's army at the Battle of Dunbar, and was granted lands previously owned by Alan Durward. With Robert the Bruce, he was present at Peebles when the Bruce, John Comyn, and William Lamberton were sworn in as Guardians of Scotland. Brechin returned to Galloway with Bruce. Brechin returned to English service when he did homage to King Edward I of England at the Siege of Stirling Castle. In 1320, at a parliament at Scone by Perth, Perthshire, later known as the Black Parliament, Brechin was found complicit along with William de Soules, the Countess of Strathearn and others in a conspiracy to depose the king. For this offence Brechin was executed.
Sir Robert Alexander Watson Watt, born on 13 April 1892 in Brechin, died 5 December 1973, was a pioneer and significant contributor to the development of radar. Radar was initially nameless and researched elsewhere but it was greatly expanded on 1 September 1936 when Watson-Watt became Superintendent of a new establishment under the Air Ministry, Bawdsey Research Station near Felixstowe, Suffolk. Work there resulted in the design and installation of aircraft detection and tracking stations called Chain Home along the east and south coasts of England in time for the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. This system provided the vital advance information that helped the Royal Air Force win the Battle of Britain.
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