Tour Scotland video of interior of St Bean's Church on ancestry, history visit and trip to Fowlis Wester, Perthshire, Scotland. The Earls of Strathearn once held court at Fowlis Wester and it was Gilbert, the third Earl, who gifted the building to the parish at the beginning of the 13th century. The church was dedicated to St Bean, the great-grandson of the King of Leinster, Ireland. He had come to the area to preach in the 8th century. One of seven brothers, who were all ardent Roman Catholic ecclesiastics and founders of churches, St Bean came to Scotland to preach the Gospel among the Picts in the area, who had been converted to Christianity almost two centuries earlier. The standing stones in the area convinced him that this was the best place to begin driving out the dark pagan practices associated with such stones. It is believed there has been a church at the site since those times but what kind of building existed prior to Gilbert’s gift is not known. However, the Pictish Cross Symbol Stone , discovered embedded in a wall during renovations in 1927, is thought to date back to St Bean’s time. Notable features of the church are the aumbry, recess for church vessels, the eighth century Pictish cross already mentioned, which shows Jonah and the whale, and the lepers’ squint which is a special window from where the afflicted could watch Mass without coming into contact with the rest of the congregation. The church also contains a piece of McBean tartan which US astronaut Alan Bean took to the moon and back in 1969.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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