St Andrews, South Street, St Leonard's Chapel

St. Leonard's Church.

A parish church of St. Leonard is mentioned as early as 1413 (1), but the present building is mainly, if not wholly, subsequent to that date, and represents what is left of the chapel of St. Leonard's College founded in 1512 by the efforts of John Hepburn, Prior of the Convent of St.Andrews (2), whose arms appear on one of the south buttresses. The shield, ensigned with a mitre and backed by the pastoral staffs, is flanked by four roses. It bears: On a chevron a rose between two lions counter-combatant. The tower shown on the 18th-century print [SC 1108099] and the parts immediately adjoining it to east and west have disappeared.

The chapel, as it now stands, is a long narrow structure measuring 79 ¾ by 20 ½ feet internally. The side walls are 2 ½ feet thick, but the east gable, for a reason explained below, has a total thickness of 4 ¼ feet. There are slight indications that the part of the building which extends for 56 feet from the present west gable is earlier than the portion beyond, which dates from the 16th century. In that case the windows in the former division must be 16th-century insertions. The roof was replaced In 1910. The west gable also is modern and stands farther eastwards than the original one. On the north-east is a vaulted sacristy, which when entire was evidently two-storeyed, the upper storey having a small window to the chapel. A doorway inserted in its west gable has been partly built up to form a window.

The east gable contains two long passages, one above the other, which communicate with the sacristy and are lit by narrow windows opening into the chapel. As these are grooved for glazing on the chapel side, this must at onetime have been an outside wall. The lower passage is 6 ½ feet high, the upper one 6 feet, while each is quite two feet wide. Above the upper passage the wall is in taken, both on the outside and on the inside, and is pierced by a central window. At the south-east angle is the tusking of a return wall, containing one jamb of a window.

The chapel is lit, mainly from the south, by square-headed windows of English 'perpendicular' type, the two largest of which have quatrefoiled heads. Internally the sill of the eastmost window in the south wall forms a credence shelf, the east end being dished out to form a shallow piscina, while beside it, but at a higher level, is an aumbry. On the sides of the same window are image brackets with canopied heads. The windows on the north side are small and are set high in the wall. A doorway to the south has been partly closed and formed into a window. Built into the present west gable are the following details: (a) a carved panel with Hepburn's arms backed by a crozier; on a hood above are the initials P.I.H. for Prior John Hepburn, while on a label below is the motto, AD VITAM: (b) the same arms repeated on a weatherworn shield set in a niche above the entrance: (c) sundry architectural fragments from the cathedral-arch-mouldings, dog-tooth enrichments, and several parts of Transitional crocketed caps.

The chapel contains an early piscina, probably from the cathedral, and several tombstones, most of which have been very greatly defaced by exposure to the weather, so that in certain examples nothing but a stray word or so of the inscription remains. Drawings of these stones in a better condition were made by the Rev. Chas. J. Lyon, M.A., and appear in The Ancient Monuments of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1847. Unfortunately the reproductions and translations are not always very accurate.

[see RCAHMS 1933, 247-8, for a detailed description of 9 stones]

A side entrance to the church is approached from Pends Road. It is a 17th-century archway with semicircular head moulded with a quirked edge-roll. Above it are two panel-spaces, the upper empty, the lower containing a panel, now illegible but said to have borne the coat of the Duke of Lennox, with the date 1617. Behind the gate there seems to have been a lodge.

HISTORICAL NOTE. - A hospital belonging to the Culdees existed at St. Andrews in the 12th century (2). It was transferred to the bishopric and in 1144 conveyed by Bishop Robert to the Priory (3). At first known as the Hospital of St. Andrew, it was subsequently associated with St. Leonard (4). Then, owing to the decline of pilgrimages, the hospital or inn came to be little patronised and was utilised as a residence for elderly women. Ultimately in February 1512/3 "the hospital and the church of St. Leonard joined thereto, newly built in a proper form at the expense of the Church of St. Andrews" were turned by Archbishop Stewart and Prior John Hepburn into a college "to be named the College of Poor Clerks of the Church of St. Andrews” (9).

RCAHMS 1933, visited 17 July 1926

(1) Lib. Prior. S. Andree, pp. 15-18. (2( The College of St. Leonard, John Herkless and Robert Kerr Hannay, p. 17. (3) Ibid., p. 216. (4) Ibid., pp, 216-17. (5) Ibid., p. 217. (6) Ibid., p. 12. (7) Lib. Prior. S. Andree, pp. 54, 123. (8) The College of St. Leonard, pp. 8-12. (9) Ibid., pp.127-44.

St. Andrews boasts the oldest university in Scotland: it received its bull of foundation in 1413. The bull allowed for five faculties - canon law, civil law, theology, medicine and the liberal arts. These faculties had varying fortunes. For example, medicine was taught only spasmodically until the sixteenth century (Nicholson, 1975, 273) and in the poverty-stricken eighteenth century, the university sold medical degrees. St. John's College was the cornerstone of the university, formally established in 1419. Its main teaching sphere was to be arts and theology, but after 1461 the building fell out of use (Cowan, 1976, 232). Possibly St. John's had been superseded by the establishment of St.Salvator's College in mid-century. The stately tower and chapel beneath are part of Bishop Kennedy's original foundation, but the class rooms round about it are modern. The early sixteenth century witnessed the foundation of two more colleges, St. Leonards and St. Marys. St. Leonard's Chapel boasts some early work, but what remains of St. Mary's College has been considerably worked over and modernised (RCAM, 1933, 248-9). The University library was built in 1612 over the foundations of St. John's College. In 1747, the college of St. Leonard united with St. Salvator to help meet the financial needs of the institution.

Information from ‘Historic St Andrews: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).

St. Andrews was for centuries a favourite place for pilgrims. St. Leonard's hospital, which had been founded for the reception of pilgrims, later served as a hospital for old and infirm women until 1522, when it became the corner-stone for Prior Hepburn's St. Leonard's College ( Cowan, 1976, 190).

Information from ‘Historic St Andrews: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).