St Mary's Parish Church

General information

The Collegiate Church of St Mary in Haddington was founded in the late 14th century, and was complete by the 1480s. It is one of the three great mediaeval kirks in the east of Scotland, the other two being St Giles Edinburgh and St Michael's Linlithgow - though at 206 feet long, the church is 2 feet longer than St Giles, and is the longest church in Scotland. The building was sacked in Henry VIII's 'rough wooing' in 1548, and at the instigation of John Knox the nave was subsequently walled off, re-roofed and used as the parish church in 1561. The crossing, transepts and choir remained open to the elements - a famous 'romantic ruin' - until the restoration in the early 1970s, after 400 years of dereliction. The new vaulted ceilings in the restored areas look authentic, but are actually fibreglass - the mediaeval walls wouldn't support a stone vaulted roof. A new organ, the finest in the county, was installed in 1990 by Lammermuir Organs of Oldhamstocks.