Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: Augustinian Order

The first missionaries to arrive here were the Culdees'. It is possible that they were the followers of St. Ninian and his missionaries from Whithorn. At the beginning of the 12th century, Queen Margaret of Scotland imposed reforms. The 12 Culdees became a Prior and 11 canons of the Augustinian Order. The tower and some parts of the present church date from this period. Malcolm III gave a grant of land to the Cathedral of St. Andrew's (Fife) in thanksgiving for victory over his enemies in 1078, and the Romanesque style of architecture suggests that the building was completed early in the second half of the 12th Century. At that time the church building may have been a dual purpose place of worship: a parish Church for the inhabitants who stood in the nave and a conventual building for the canons who occupied the Chancel. By the early 16th Century the Priory entered into a period of decline. Fire gutted the Priory buildings and debt ended its existence. The church now became the Parish Church. The structure has been altered several times, including post-Reformation (around 1690), and in 1822, 1851 and again in 1921