Town in Fife, Scotland
St Andrews
Golf's spiritual home has a university older than any in Scotland, a student tradition involving foam and pyjamas, and a royal wedding-turned-romance.
Key information
- County
- Fife
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 17,000 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- The Old Course, the University of St Andrews, Prince William and Kate's student days
- What locals are called
- St Andrean or St Andrewsian; the university's students and alumni are often called Andreans
- Famous people
- Prince William, Catherine Princess of Wales, Old Tom Morris, John Knox
About St Andrews
The town that golf calls home
Golf was being played on the links at St Andrews by the early 1400s, and in 1552 the townsfolk were granted the right to use the links for recreation, a very early recognition of public golf. Today the Old Course is one of the most famous pieces of turf on Earth, and it is a public course: locals walk it, and it is closed on Sundays so that the town can stroll across it. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club formed in 1754, and its successor body, the R&A, still writes the Rules of Golf with the United States Golf Association. The Open Championship has been played at St Andrews regularly since 1873, and the course is hosting it again in 2027. The Old Course has no dramatic cliff or lake. Its fame comes from the bunkers, with names such as Hell Bunker and the Road Hole's notorious Road Bunker, and from the huge shared greens. The Swilcan Bridge, a small stone arch over a burn at the first and 18th fairways, is where golfing legends traditionally pose for farewell photographs.
A university older than the rest of Scotland's
The University of St Andrews was founded in 1413, which makes it the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world, after Oxford and Cambridge. Papal bulls confirming its status arrived in 1413 from the Avignon pope Benedict XIII. The town's early prestige came from religion. St Andrews was the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, and the university grew out of a church-led desire to train clergy at home, since the Wars of Independence and the Hundred Years' War made travelling to Paris awkward for Scots. Students here wear distinctive red academic gowns, a look that still turns up on Sunday mornings on the pier. Two traditions are famous. On the night before the first of May, students gather for the May Dip and swim in the North Sea at dawn. And on Raisin Monday, first-years are traditionally presented with a receipt for a pound of raisins and a mock-ceremony in return, with a famously foamy finale in the quad.
The cathedral that was once Scotland's largest
The ruins of St Andrews Cathedral still hint at a building that was once the largest church in Scotland. Building began in 1158, and it was consecrated in 1318 in the presence of Robert the Bruce. It was a pilgrimage site because it was said to hold relics of St Andrew, the apostle who became Scotland's patron saint. The cathedral was abandoned after the Reformation, and its stone was plundered for local building. What remains is a dramatic east gable and the older St Rule's Tower, which survives beside the ruins. It is currently closed to visitors during high-level masonry safety work. Nearby stands St Andrews Castle, a clifftop fortress with a grim cast of characters. It served as the bishop's residence and prison, and it has a bottle dungeon, a pit carved from rock, and an extraordinary tunnel dug during a siege in the 1540s to undermine the castle.
Martyrs, reformers and a very public burning
St Andrews was at the centre of the Scottish Reformation. The preacher George Wishart was burned at the stake outside the castle in 1546. Soon afterwards, a group of Protestant conspirators killed Cardinal David Beaton, who had ordered the burning, and seized the castle. John Knox, later the leading figure of the Scottish Reformation, joined them and preached in the town's parish church. The initials PH set into the cobbles on North Street mark the spot where another martyr, Patrick Hamilton, was burned in 1528. Local student superstition says that anyone who steps on the initials will fail their degree, so many students go out of their way to avoid them.
The royal romance that put it on the map again
Prince William and Catherine Middleton met as students at St Andrews, where both arrived in 2001. They lived in the same halls, and later shared a house. They married in 2011, and Prince William has since credited the town for giving him a degree of normality. Applications to the university rose sharply afterwards, a trend known as the "Kate and Wills effect". The romance helped St Andrews reach an international audience, though the town had long been used to visitors. Every summer its beaches draw crowds, including West Sands, a vast stretch of beach used for the famous running scene in Chariots of Fire, which was filmed in 1980 and released in 1981.
Eating and living by the sea
St Andrews is a small coastal town with a lively food scene. Fife's coast is known for its seafood, and the harbour's local catch, notably crab and langoustines, is a staple. Scottish classics such as cullen skink and Cranachan show up on menus alongside fish suppers eaten on the pier. The town's size is deceptive: the compact medieval layout with three main streets, North Street, South Street and Market Street, radiating from the cathedral makes everything walkable. Students and locals alike take a famous Sunday pier walk, a tradition that was begun by students after chapel services and continues in their red gowns today.