The Silver Jubilee Booklet
This booklet was very kindly provided in hard-copy by John McCabe in 2019. John served as Warden to Deans Court from 1975-1985. This booklet was created in 1977 to mark the Silver Jubilee of Deans Court opening as a postgraduate university residence. That year was also the Centenary of the birth of Sir James Irvine, who is considered to be the founder of Deans Court, as it is in its present state.
This booklet was the work of Douglas Llyod, then Provost of St. Leonard's College, Dr. Ronald Cant, retired Keeper of the University Muniments, and Mr. Robert Smart, then Keeper of the University Muniments.
Their work has been faithfully transcribed here by Josephine Tomkins in 2020. The images referred to in parts of the text may be viewed in a separate gallery, the link included below.
St. Leonard's College and Deans Court
The College of St. Leonard in the University of St. Andrews was reconstituted in 1974 to care for the interests of all postgraduate workers in the University. The membership of the College consists of research students and research fellows, and a number of members of the academic and administrative staff of the University who have been appointed members of the College. The aim of the College is to foster intellectual and social contact between research workers of different disciplines and to further research in the University
While the College is not strictly the reincarnation of the original mediaeval College it has inherited its name and it gives its members pride to think that they may also inherit the traditions of that College and may feel themselves the present day representatives of a St. Leonard’s College which had a distinguished history and many famous members.
The present College is encouraged in this feeling of continuity in that its buildings include the attractive restored Chapel of the mediaeval College. They also include Deans Court, another interesting mediaeval building which was converted into a dwelling place for research students in 1952, largely on the initiative of the then Principal of the University, Sir James Irvine, who saw in this act, and in the restoration of the College Chapel, the seeds of the recreation of St Leonard’s College as a centre of graduate scholarship and community.
It seemed appropriate, therefore, in 1977, which marks both the Silver Jubilee of the opening of Deans Court as a residence for research students and also the Centenary of the birth of Sir James Irvine, whose vision was responsible for the reconstitution of St. Leonard’s College, that a booklet might be produced giving an account of the mediaeval College, and of Deans Court, which, with the Chapel, is the focus of the present day College.
Many thanks are due to Dr. Ronald Cant, now retired from a Readership in Scottish History and as a Keeper of the University Muniments, and to Mr. Robert Smart, the present Keeper, who have very kindly written the articles for this booklet.
Douglas Llyod
Provost, St. Leonard’s College.
St. Leonard's College
I St. Leonard’s College was founded by Archbishop Alexander Stewart and Prior John Hepburn on 20th August 1512. To be precise, its formal title was ‘the College of Poor Clerks in the Church of St. Andrew’ and its primary purpose was to provide training in arts and theology for novices of the Augustinian Priory that formed part of the cathedral foundation. The Principalship was to be held by one of the canons selected for this duty by the Prior while all other appointments – of regents, chaplains, and bursars – were to be made by the Prior and Principal jointly. To ensure that the conditions of the foundation were duly observed there was to be an annual visitation by representatives of the Priory. At the same time, however, the college formed part of the University of St. Andrews, and before long its students came to include many who were not destined for membership of the Augustinian Order even if they were obliged to follow a life of monastic severity while they were in residence.
As the charter of 1512 makes clear, the college instituted in that year was a very much older foundation in a fresh guise, namely, ‘the Hospital and the Church of St. Leonard joined thereto, newly built in proper form at the expense of the Church of St. Andrew and with money got by the Prior for the purpose’. This hospital or hospice actually antedated the mediaeval Cathedral and Priory, being already in existence in 1144 when Bishop Robert transferred it from the Culdees to the Augustinians. The Culdees, to be found in several centres of the Celtic Church in both Scotland and Ireland, seem to have represented the ‘active’ element in the church when, as at St. Andrews, one element had become in active and secularised. Their hospice was evidently intended for use by pilgrims to the shrine of St. Andrew but was said at the time of its transfer to have accommodation for no more than six guests. Bishop Robert now endowed it for the reception of ‘all comers’, reconstructing and extending the building to serve this enlarged function.
The site of the hospice – and of the succeeding college – was on the western edge of the ecclesiastical settlement of Kinrimund to the south of the eastmost part of South Street. The endowment, as supplemented by King David I and his daughter-in-law the Countess Ada, included lands in the neighbourhood of St. Andrews such as Rathelpie (to the west) and Kenly (to the south-east) still in the possession of the university. The earliest reference to an association with St. Leonard appears to be in 1248 but many foundations of this kind had such a dedication, the saint’s patronage extending beyond prisoners to persons lodging in inns or hospices who might often be in as great a need of his protection.
That the hospice would include a chapel was to be expected, but when this building is first mentioned in 1413 it is as ‘the Parish Church of St. Leonard within the City of St. Andrews’. This status it may well have acquired in terms of a Papal letter of 1198 authorising the Bishop of St. Andrews and the Priory – to which the sole existing parish church of Holy Trinity was appropriated – to build a second such church for the growing population. In practice they seem to have solved the problem by making the hospital chapel available for parishioners living on the lands with which it was endowed. So arose the curious Parish of St. Leonard, small and scattered in extend and served in the Middle Ages not by a vicar, as was customary, but by a chaplain attached first to the hospital and latterly to the College under the title of ‘curate’.
II When the University of St. Andrews came into being between 1410 and 1414 St. Leonard’s Church was one of the buildings in which it held its earliest meetings. Of such the most far-reaching in its consequences was undoubtedly that in 1418 when the Faculty of Arts decided to withdraw its obedience from Pope Benedict XIII in favour of Pope Martin V and to send representatives to the Governor and the Three Estates of the Realm to persuade them to do likewise, so ending the Great Schism of the West. In the background of such momentous happenings the condition of the hospital remains obscure. When it was re-founded as a college it was stated that latterly it was ‘without pilgrims’ and had been converted into an almshouse for old women ‘who gave little or no return in devotion or virtue’. Masters of ‘the Hospital or Almshouse of St. Leonard’ are certainly mentioned in 1421, 1450, and 1511, but it is impossible to define the nature of the institution over which they were presiding at the time.
The decision to use ‘the Hospital and Church of St. Leonard’ as the basis of a college was clearly that of Prior John Hepburn. His associate in the foundation, the young Archbishop of St. Andrews Alexander Stewart, had indeed been planning top provide the university with a second college – addition to St. Salvator’s (1450) – but by a re-organisation of the old Pedagogy of the Faculty of Arts (1430). Instead he was persuaded to give his support to this very different scheme, and the fact that he died with his father King James IV at Flodden in the following year meant that it was not until 1537 that the Pedagogy was transformed into St. Mary’s College.
As has been indicated, Hepburn’s college was to be very much a dependency of the Priory. In its first form it was to consist of a Principal, four chaplains of whom two were to function as regents or teaching masters while one was to act as curate of the parish, twenty scholars in arts and six in theology. These were to be maintained partly from the revenues of the parent house, the Priory of St. Andrews, partly from the endowments of the old hospital with additions made by the founder. Under the college statutes – as they survive in a revised version of 1544 – the foundation seems to have altered slightly so as to consist of a Principal providing instruction in theology, two chaplains acting respectively as ‘curate and sacrist’ and ‘provisor and procurator in things temporal’, four regents in arts, and a variable number of scholars. Other students might reside within the college provided they conformed to its austere order of life.
In 1545, on the request of the Principal and founded members, a fresh charter was issued to the college by Cardinal Beaton. Although this did not explicitly recognise it as an independent corporation, the fact that the grant was made in this particular manner had much the same effect. While the foundation remained under the ultimate control of the Priory, in practice a great deal of its business – the management of its finances as well as the regulation of its community life – was conducted by the Principal and his senior colleagues. These also shared in the work of the university as officials and examiners. Thus ‘the College of St. Leonard’, as it was now commonly termed, had acquired a status not unlike that of St . Salvator’s and St. Mary’s. And yet, paradoxically, this foundation designed to sustain the old faith become at the same time a home of reformed opinions. With teachers such as Gavin Logie and students like Alexander Alane or Alesius ‘to drink of St. Leonard’s Well’ was tantamount to embracing Protestantism.
In both the original charter of 1512 and the revised version of 1545 there are references to the buildings of the college in terms which suggest a thorough-going reconstruction of the old hospital and church. The evidence of such parts of the fabric as survive supports this conclusion. While the church or chapel includes a great deal of Romanesque masonry, probably dating from the earlier re-building in the twelfth century, the foundations and the architectural details belong to Prior Hepburn’s period and it is clear that the older stonework has simply been re-used. Interestingly, the windows of the church are of square-headed ‘English perpendicular’ form and the same is true of the garment of the ‘Stone Transe’ incorporated in the later buildings to the west.
In its first form the church seems to have comprised four ‘bays’ or constructional units of approximately equal length, the three westernmost forming a nave for parochial services and the fourth providing a choir for the corporate worship of the college. As enrolments of students increased, however, the choir was extended eastwards as far as the Priory precinct wall which was incorporated to serve as a new east gable. It was perhaps at the same time, possibly in the 1540’s, that a tower was build within the west end of the church. Beyond it was the ‘Stone Transe’, a two storeyed structure having schools or lecture-rooms on the ground floor with six ‘chambers’ above for the principal, Curate, and Regents. The Provisor had quarters over the east gate and the students in a row of chambers on the south side of the court but details regarding these and the location of the hall are lacking for this period. The heraldic ornamentation includes examples of Prior Hepburn’s arms and a quite splendid panel, building to the later hall, depicting the arms of Archbishop Stewart with angel supporters.
III When the Reformation came to St. Andrews in 559-60 it had less immediate effect than might be supposed. While the Cathedral fell into disuse and thence into disrepair and ruin, the Priory remained in being as a legal corporation under its titular head the Lord James Stewart and its rights over St. Leonard’s College were maintained by his experienced Sub-Prior John Winram. The Principal, John Duncanson, continued in office, as did the four regents, though the two chaplainries seem to have lapsed. For some years indeed St. Leonard’s was re-absorbed in St. Andrews parish, but in 1578 it was placed under the care of the college principal James Wilkie who had succeeded the great humanist George Buchanan (1566-70).
In the next year 1579 there was enacted the ‘New Foundation’ of the colleges of the university. By this theological study was to be concentrated in St. Mary’s with St. Salvator’s and St. Leonard’s becoming primarily ‘colleges in philosophy’ or arts. Initially it was intended at St. Salvator’s should also provide instruction in law and medicine while the principal of St. Leonard’s was to lecture on Platonic philosophy as an antidote to the traditional Aristotelianism of the mediaeval curriculum, but these provisions soon lapsed. Hence it is not surprising that when the university, after a period of continuing prosperity, began to decline in the eighteenth century, proposals should have been made for a union of the two ‘philosophy colleges’ a scheme actually carried into effect in 1747.
In the intervening years St. Leonard’s College maintained itself as fully the equal of St. Salvator’s in prestige and numbers. Its students included members of the nobility like the first Marquis of Argyle, the first Duke of Lauderdale, and the second Earl of Buccleuch, the last a generous benefactor of the college library which by other gifts of the kind became perhaps the best in St. Andrews. If its regents, of necessity, remained but a brief time in its service, many achieved prominence in their later careers like John Strang as principal of Glasgow University, John Wedderburn as physician to King Charles I, and James Sharp as Archbishop of St. Andrews. By the re-annexation of the Priory to the Archbishopric in 1661 the last also became Patron of the college.
In 1620 an addition to the teaching resources of St. Leonard’s was made when Sir John Scott of Scotstarvit instituted a ‘professorship of humanity’. Despite its high-sounding title its initial purpose was to perfect students’ mastery of Latin so as to enable them to participate in the work of the philosophical courses which was still conducted entirely in that language. After much difficult the new professor eventually found a place on the foundation but as the junior of his philosophical colleagues. These, it may be noted, taught all the subjects of the four year curriculum to one ‘class’ in turn despite a provision of the New Foundation that they should specialise in a particular subject. In 1702 Greek became a ‘fixed’ professorship and in 1727 Natural Philosophy followed suit but it was not until 1744, on the very eve of its union with St. Salvator’s, that St. Leonard’s achieved complete specialisation.
But the early years of the seventeenth century it is clear that the college buildings were in need of renewal and extension. Robert Wilkie, Principal from 1589 to 1611, ‘enclosed the courtyard with buildings on the west and enlarged it on the east’ as the inscription on his monument in the church (one of a fine series here) records. The surviving eastern archway was evidently part of this work but when his successor Peter Bruce assumed office (1611-30) there was such a shortage of students’ rooms that some had to be lodged outside the college. To remedy this situation in 1617 Bruce reconstructed the residential range on the south side of the court opposite the church as a two-storeyed structure of five ‘chambers’ above and below, each accommodating two students. In 1655 this range was continued to the west by a building of equal extent – both still largely intact – donated by Principal William Guild of King’s College, Aberdeen. Allowing for rooms in the east and west ‘capitols’ and the ‘Stone Transe’ the college could thus house some three-quarters of its average undergraduate membership of about a hundred during this period. Sons of the nobility, with their private tutors or ‘pedagogues’ might be permitted to lodge in the town. And as there was now no ban on the marriage of senior members of the foundation these might do likewise.
Beyond these residential buildings the college continued to comprise church, hall, library, and certain lecture-rooms or ‘schools’. In the church the screen diving in nave and choir had now been removed and the whole area seated for congregational worship, the members of the college occupying a gallery inserted at the west end. By the seventeenth century, if not earlier, the hall may have been located in the north-west corner of the court, beyond the Stone Transe. In the 1670’s the ‘Senzie Chamber’ on the west side of the Priory cloister was reconstructed ‘to be a librarie house to St. Leonard’s Colledge’ but was destroyed by fire in 1683 before it had been brought into use and the library continued in the main college group.
In 1702 this was itself damaged by a fire which necessitated the complete re-building of the block containing the hall in the form of which it may still be seen, a three-storeyed structure with ‘common school’, hall, and library one above the other, linked by a handsome ‘scale and platt’ stair at the east end. In 1718, while this work was still in hand, it was decided to replace the adjoining Stone Transe, described as ‘ruinous’, by a new building having schools on the ground floor and two storeys of students’ rooms above. As the building threatened to dwarf the adjoining tower at the west end of the church, in 1727 this was considerably heightened and provided with a new stone spire and balustraded parapet.
IV The rehabilitation of the fabric of St. Leonard’s College was, in a sense, an act of faith. By this time student numbers in St. Andrews had declined from an average total of around 250 to 150 and at St. Leonard’s College from 100 to 60. In the 1730’s, however, the situation became even more serious, so much so that by the 1740’s no more than a handful of students were entering the two ‘philosophy colleges’. In the circumstances the argument for their amalgamation became almost irresistible and in 1747 it was accomplished with the formation of ‘the United College of St. Salvator and St. Leonard’. As it so happened, the first Principal of the United College was Thomas Tullideph, previously Principal of St. Leonard’s College, and in view of this circumstance and the fact that the St. Leonard’s buildings were by far the better condition it may seem surprising that St. Salvator’s should have been chosen to the be the seat of the combined foundation. Admittedly the latter had a more impressive frontage on one of the main streets of the city but the chief reason for its selection seems to have been a personal preference on the part of the Principal.
As a result of this decision, although both the name and the historic identity of St. Leonard’s College were continued within the United College, the fact that its buildings were abandoned meant that its contribution to the character of the foundation was significantly reduced. In factual fact the abandonment was a somewhat prolonged process and at no time complete. For the first year of its existence indeed the members of the United College occupied the St. Leonard’s buildings while those of St. Salvator’s were being repaired. But the repairs continued beyond 1748 and came to involve a massive re-building that was not completed until 1747. During this time some use was necessarily made of St. Leonard’s – though the detached site in the Priory was sold in 1745 – and the worship of the parochial congregation continued within the college church. In 1759, however, the United College being permanently installed at St. Salvator’s, it was resolved that the congregation should follow suit. In 1761 accordingly St. Salvator’s Church was brought back into use as ‘St. Leonard’s parish church’, a function it served until 1904 when a new church was provided at Rathelpie on a site which had formed part of the patrimony of the ancient hospital and college and had thus been included within the parish from its creation.
When St. Leonard’ Church was abandoned it was thought prudent to reduce the structure to the bare walls, the roof being removed and the tower demolished. But when the other college buildings were sold to Professor Robert Watson in 1772 – for £200 and an annual feu-duty of £10 – the church was explicitly excluded from this arrangement and a right of entry to it from both South Street and the Pends road reserved ‘in case it shall ever be repaired and again used as a church’. In fact there was a serious proposal to do so the very next year when the college became alarmed at the condition of the vaulted roof of St. Salvator’s Church and had plans prepared by the Edinburgh architect James Craig for a renovation of St. Leonard’s Church in a classical style, but in the outcome the threatening vault was excised and St. Leonard’s continued in its ruined state for many years more. The parish remained under the ministry of the Principle of the United College until 1824.
In the meantime the other buildings of the college had been divided into two properties know as ‘St. Leonard’s East’ and ‘St Leonard’s West’, the latter including the hall and other structures on the north side of the court as well as six of the ten residential units on the south side. In the mid-nineteenth century the owners of the properties came to be respectively Sir David Brewster, Principal of the United College, and Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair, Provost of St. Andrews. In 1853 they were responsible for opening up a double carriage entrance at the foot of the approach from South Street, a scheme that in Sir David’s case involved the setting back of the west gable of the old church to its present position. He way, on the other hand, take credit for re-opening the blocked windows and putting the interior into a better state.
In 1859 Brewster left St. Andrews for Edinburgh, being succeeded as Principal (but not in the occupation of St. Leonard’s East) by James David Forbes. Among other things Forbes was anxious to restore collegiate residence for his students and in 1861 obtained a lease of St. Leonard’s West from the representatives of Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair who had died this same year. Here ‘St. Leonard’s Hall’ was inaugurated, a venture initially so promising that the lease was extended to include St. Leonard’s East and in 1867 a large new building was constructed on a site further to the east. This, however, failed to maintain the numbers necessary for survival and in 1874 it was closed. After some thought of using the building for the University Library it was sold to Bishop Woodsworth who named it ‘Bishopshall’. In 1881 the old residential buildings were bought by the St. Andrews School for Girls founded in 1877 which, after its arrival here, assumed the traditional name o the situ and eventually acquired all the adjoining properties other than St. Leonard’s Church.
In 1902-4 there was a possibility that this would be brought back into use when arrangements were made to remove the parochial congregation from St. Salvator’s Church so that it could serve exclusively as a University Chapel. On due examination, however, it was found that the old fabric could not be made to accommodate the number of parishioners prescribed by law and a new building was provided instead at Rathelpie. Following this, in 1910 the University re-roofed the old church and re-glazed the windows but no further progress was made until 1948-52 when the building was completely renovated with the help of the Pilgrim Trust and equipped with furnishings donated by Sir David and Lady Russell as a memorial to their son Patrick, a former student of the university killed on active service in the Second World War. The designs were prepared by the Edinburgh architect Ian Gordon Lindsay and involved, as far as possible, a restoration of the fabric to its original form. In this way the building has revived for the modern academic community of St. Andrew active memories of one of its most historic foundations, the ancient Hospital and College of St. Leonard.
R. G. Cant.
Deans Court
I The house now known as Deans Court has only borne that name since the middle 1880’s following a short period when it was styled ‘Cathedral Place’. For centuries before that it was officially called the ‘Archdeacon’s Inns’ – his town house, as opposed to his country residence, which was at Strathtyrum until that property was fueued to the archdeacon’s hereditary baillie, John Inglis, in 1546. The persistence of the name of the pre-Reformation official who was next in power to the bishop, and frequently succeeded him, is testimony to the power of tradition. It is probably that the Archdeacon of St. Andrews was originally endowed with the lands on which Deans Court now stands, and that the toft with the buildings erected thereon, situated in Kinrimund in which the first identified Archdeacon, Matthew, was confirmed by Bishop Robert in the middle of the twelfth century, is the same site. But it may also have an even older association as the ‘domus ferlani scolares’, the house of the lector or man of learning of the Celtic Church whose functions were closely connected with education and whose office there is some evidence that the archdeacon assumed.
The building now standing on the site is usually described as an L-plan dwelling of the late sixteenth century but it is clear on closer inspection that the mouldings on which this date are founded are insertions in an already existing structure. The building which existed at that time has been erected in three or possibly four phases as can be seen by reference to Plate I. There is no solid evidence on which we can suggest dates for any of these early building phases, as no satisfactory chronology for Scottish urban buildings without dateable decorative carvings yet exists. Deans Court however has no necessary affinity to urban dwellings, being as likely more akin to church buildings as the residence of such an important ecclesiastical official. Unfortunately no other archdeacon’s residence survives in Scotland.
Prima facie there is no absolute absurdity in suggesting that Phase I could represent the ground floor of the first archdeacon’s house of the twelfth century. Vaults of such large dimensions and structure, and larger, do survive from this period in for example, St. Margaret’s chapel, Edinburg, St. Helene’s Church, Berwickshire and St. Martin’s, Haddington. The depth of foundation of this part of Deans Court is also remarkable, taking it down to approximately the same level as the cathedral which is contemporary with the first archdeacon’s house. A bore hole made by Ove Arup and Partners in March 1974 seven feet from the east gable yielded travelled earth down to 3.10, from the surface overlying a further metre of sand and gravel with cobbles before reaching bedrock. A trial pit at the gable was taken down to 2.4m but failed to reach the foundation level of the wall. The dimensions of this Phase I vault are 29’ x 19’ x 10’ high with walls 4’–41/4’ thick. We can only suggest that each of these early phases of building has the appearance of great antiquity. Unfortunately the whole of the lower part of the old wall which faces North Street and which might have yielded evidence is obscured by later building. This earliest building, whatever its date, no doubt originally had divisions within its vault and a main entrance from North Street, thus accounting for its consistent description in title deeds as lying on the South side of North Street although in later periods its main entrance appears to have been from the side opposite the west end of the cathedral.
II However, even granted this remarkable survival, no building in virtually continuous occupation over many centuries can fall to be more than a patchwork of alterations, additions and repairs. Though it is not until the late fifteenth century that documentary proof absolute and positive places the archdeacon on this site – and many distinguished archdeacons probably resided here earlier – we have elected to star the rehearsal of the romantic line of occupants and owners, including saints, sinners, scoundrels and scholars, with William Schevez, who was archdeacon from 1472 until 1474 x 78. He studied at St. Andrews and abroad, and, while gaining a continental reputation as a scholar (in 1491 the famous Belgian astrologer, Jasper Laet, dedicated a book to him), he also became the most famous physician in fifteenth century Scotland. When his archbishop, Patrick Graham, began to show distressing symptoms, Schevez was appointed to diagnose and treat them. Graham was shut up as incurably insane in Loch Leven castle, which will figure again in the Deans Court story. Schevez succeeded Graham as archbishop. His interest in scholarship continued and he gathered about him the greatest Scottish library of his age. He spent no less than 500 gold crowns in 1493 in bringing books from Flanders. Some of his books survive and while many of the more interesting are scattered and dispersed some fourteen books are in the University Library. The portrait medal struck on his being appointed papal legate and primate of Scotland in 1491 is the earliest of its kind for Scotland and of course the earliest of an owner of Deans Court.
His successor as possessor of the Archdeacon’s Inns was Robert Blackadder who moved on to be bishop of Aberdeen and afterwards bishop, and first archbishop of Glasgow. He was a member of several important embassies to Rome, to England, to France and at least twice to Spain. It was appropriate that such a seasoned traveller should die on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1508. Blackadder’s successor as archdeacon was Alexander Inglis, also a learned man. Amongst other bequests to the faculty of arts in 1496 he left a number of books including works of Virgil, Ovid, Cicero and Seneca which demonstrate an interest in classics long before renaissance studies are generally recognised to have penetrated to Scotland.
The next archdeacon, Robert Wells, had a short reign and probably died of plague, which raged in St. Andrews for three years from 1501 to 1504. Wells was succeeded by Alexander Stewart, the illegitimate son of James IV, who, as he was only eight years old at the time he was appointed, can have had little to do with the office. He was a pupil of the great renaissance scholar Erasmus at Padua who praises him in his Adagia, and is the first known Scot to have written in an italic hand. He was appointed archbishop of St. Andrews in 1504 and he died on Flodden field, but not before he had been co-founder of St. Leonard’s College which was to become the most important intellectual factor in the Reformation in Scotland.
Gavin Dunbar, “in philosophia pontificioque jure apprime eruditus” succeeded him as archdeacon from 1504 until 1519 when he became bishop of Aberdeen. Two rather shadowy figures serve the period 1519 until 1537 when George Durie was appointed. George Durie was one of four nephews of archbishop James Beaton, for whom that prelate secured the four richest benefices in the country. Andrew Durie he made abbot of Melrose; George Betoun he made abbot of Kilwinning (though he had to give it up); David Betoun he made abbot of Arbroath; and George Durie became abbot of Dunfermline as well as being archdeacon. George Durie soon made an arrangement in 1539 whereby his own nephew, Robert Pitcairn, was to succeed to these benefices while he retained the offices for life. Durie had at least two natural sons, Peter and Henry, who had letters of legitimation in 1543, and was a staunch Romanist; besides putting his own cousin’s life in jeopardy for heresy he was particularly active in seeking vengeance on the murders of his other cousin the Cardinal, but he fled to Rome in 1559 when the Reformers gained ascendency. He was beatified in Rome in 1562; it only requires a miracle for him to be recognised as a new Scottish saint.
III Robert Pitcairn conformed and therefore held onto his benefices – he was a layman in any case – of Dunfermline and the archdeaconry. In 1565 Robert Pitcairn feued Deans Court to his brother Mr. John Pitcairn by which time it is described as in need of repair. John still had it in 1579 when the transaction received a Royal confirmation, perhaps as a preliminary to transferring the property to Sir George Douglas of Helenhill who played such a dramatic part in the fate of that unfortunate lady, Mary Queen of Scots.
Sir George Douglas was the younger son of Douglas of Loch Leven castle and he was dismissed from the castle for being over-familiar with the Queen when she was in his father’s custody. Indeed she was reputed to be the mother of his illegitimate son Robert; but, was the poor woman was also supposed to be the mother about the same time of twins and a daughter with other fathers, it seems unlikely. By an interesting historical coincidence this illegitimate Robert was the father of the eminent presbyterian divine Robert Douglas who preached the sermon at the coronation of Charles II at Scone in 1651. It was Sir George Douglas who, along with Lord Seton, met Mary on the shore of Loch Leven after her escape and who rode with her to the West Country; after the disastrous battle of Langside he accompanied her on her journey to England. The date when he acquired Deans Court is unknown, though 1579 is possible; but he owned it by 1593, and is likely to have been responsible for the repair of the property, which accounts for the late sixteenth century mouldings. The much-wasted arms above what was then the only gateway into the courtyard are his, and part of his tombstone is in the cathedral museum. In 1608, the property still known as the “Archdeacones Innes”, passed by inheritance to his only lawful daughter Margaret Douglas and her husband Sir George Ramsay of Dalhousie, the progenitor of the Earls of Dalhousie.
It is about the Douglas period that the first representation of the property occurs in John Geddy’s ‘Bird’s Eye view’ plan of c.1580. Although the scale of the plan is somewhat distorted in this area there is no reason to doubt that it is a fair indication of what was on the site at this time. The main L-plan building with courtyard-well and entrance gateway are still with us, and the back wall of the great building on the south side of the courtyard can yet be discerned. Although the small structures on the North Street frontage no longer exist in the form shown, the space they occupy is known to have been used for appendage buildings of various kinds up to the present. The great storage accommodation provided by the immense ground floor vaults and the south building are explained when it is understood that the archdeacon’s country tenants were bound to deliver their rents in grain and kind to this property. The dissolution of the archdeaconry in 1612 and its annexation to the bishopric by act of parliament and great seal charter, with the exception of the “archdeanes ancient manss commonlie callit the Archdeans Innes” which is reserved to the archdeacon, almost certainly is no more than a continuation of superiority or right to feu duty only. The wording of the act is also an indication that despite recent repairs it was still regarded a very antique building.
Margaret Douglas was dead by June if not May 1622 when her husband sold the house to Sir John Spottiswoode of Dairsie, the eldest son of John Spottiswoode, archbishop of St. Andrews. It was Sir John’s brother who was accused of stealing books from the University Library, and who was tried before the Estates in Parliament Hall for supporting Montrose; having been duly found guilty he was executed by the Maiden in Market Street in 1646. Sir John Spottiswoode had no issue, and his property passed to his wife Bethla’s family, the Morisons of Prestongrange.
Sir George Morison, a cadet of Prestongrange, acquired both Dairsie and Deans Court in the 1640’s and it remained in his family until the eighteenth century. Little good can be said of Sir George Morison. He early got his estates into difficulties through involvement as guarantor in the affairs of Scott of Ardross, but he was of a sufficiently dissolute temperament to have found all the trouble he needed without help from anyone else. When Sir George appears in the record it is for continual debt, for duelling with the laird of Lathockar, fornicating with his servant women, carousing in Cupar, and deserting his wife, Agnes Boyd. His two sons, John (c. 1682-88) and David (1688-91 and his grandson John (c. 1691-1731) kept a tenuous hold on the Dairsie and Deans Court properties but when cannot say whether they ever lived in them.
IV At last in 1731 Deans Court was sold by the Morison creditors to Thomas Bethune of Kilconquhar. He appears to have been responsible for dividing the property into two, the westmost house having a porch entrance from North Street and the eastern part being entered through the courtyard by a door in the new entrance porch erected in the angle between the south wing or jamb and the oldest vault. At some period, probably during the seventeenth century and up to the time of this division, the main entrance to the house was by a stair from the street leading to an external timber gallery on the side opposite the cathedral and through a doorway into the first storey. The position of this doorway has now been destroyed by the alterations of 1950/51 but it is clearly seen in a photograph of about 1860 in the University’s collections. The ends of the timber beams supporting the gallery now marked by square stones were discovered during the repair of the east gable and wall in 1975/76. The outer ends of the beams would have rested on posts. During this time access to the vaulted ground floor would be via the narrow turnpike stair (now blocked up) at the south east corner of the building; and to the north vault, now the kitchen, by a narrow stair (now also blocked up) from the entrance porch. The fine panelled room at present occupied by the warden no doubt dates from this eighteenth century rearrangement as two houses.
After a brief possession by the Hendersons of Radernie and Hallyards between 1750 and 1758 the properties return to the world of learning they had known under the archdeacons. In 1752 the eastern house was sold to David Gregory, professor of mathematics, one of the famous academic Gregorys. He was, like his later neighbour Professor Brown, and as his surviving notebooks show, much interested in horticulture particularly the growing go vegetables. Gregory has the final distinction of meriting an elegy from his pupil Robert Ferguson, the St. Andrews poet to whom Burns owed so much.
“Now mourn ye college masters a’
And frae your ein a tear let fa’
Fam’d Gregory death has taen awa’
Without remeid
The skaith ye’ve met wi’s na that sma’
Sin Gregory’s deid”
The house remained in Gregory family possession, though passing through the female line to the Graham Bonars of Greigston, until it was sold in 1831 to John Stirling of Muiravonside near Linlithgow.
The western house was acquired from the Hendesrsons by Willian Brown, professor of ecclesiastical history in 1758. He had probably occupied it since his appointment the year before. Brown had a fierce legal battle to wage before he was admitted to the chair by virtue of his Crown presentation. He had been minister of Cortachy but had demitted that charge on a fama clamosa being raised against him. He then served as chaplain to a British regiment in Flanders and was afterwards minister of the English congregation at Utrecht until his appointment to the chair. Naturally the rest of the University did not relish as a colleague one against whom such scandalous allegations had been made; but as the lady in the case and the child were both by this time dead, the charge against him could not be proved. In time however he made an acceptable incumbent and he is alleged to be the last professor to lecture in Latin, speaking it “with as much ease and fluency as English”. To him also belongs the distinction of being the first person to take active steps to beautify the streets of St. Andrews by planting trees. In 1759 he got permission of the magistrates to plant trees in the pavement alongside his house and garden. In 1815 a later generation of magistrates cut them down and claimed the wood.
William Brown’s successor as owner was his distinguished son and St. Andrews alumnus, William Laurence Brown, Principal of Marischal College, Aberdeen. The Brown family sold the house in 1849 for £505 to Alexander Woodcock R.N. who got rid of it at a los for £430 the very next year to John Stirling of Muiravonside who had already acquire the other part. Thus the houses became one again and it remained in the Stirling family until it was sold to the University in January 1931.
The Stirlings, whose arms appear over the courtyard archway into the garden, appear to have made minor alterations about 1862 and 1870, and in 1876 gave it a major reconstruction to improve its accommodation and to embellish it with such Scots baronial features as could be cobbled on to satisfy Victorian taste. Many of these embellishments were removed by the anti-Victorian fervour of the 1950/51 alterations (compare Plates II, III and IV). The Stirlings occupied the house until about 1914 after which it was let to a Major Pye and his wife and their adopted daughter, one of the extensive family of Canon Raven. In 1918 it was leased by St. Leonards School as a “house” and they used it until it was bought by the University.
V The University opened Deans Court in session 1931/32 as an annexe to St. Salvator’s Hall, with Dr. Geoffrey Timms as sub-warden. During the war it was used as the St. Andrews Depot for hospital supplies, and as such received a visit from the Princess Royal in 1942. It became a residence again in 1945/46 (albeit financially unsuccessful) and was closed in 1950 to allow alterations to take place to turn it into a residence for research workers in all faculties. This venture was made possible by a generous grant from ICI Ltd. Of £2,500 a year for seven years to cover an estimated deficit in its operating costs and £13,000 from the Carnegie Trust to pay for alterations. These alterations reached almost three times the estimated cost and were to place a severe burden on the University’s finances for some years. Various houses in South Street and North Street have been added as annexes since 1961.
As a residence set aside for research students, Deans Court was the brainchild of Sir James Irvine; it met the practical problem of providing year round accommodation – all the other residences having then, as they still do, to depend on summer letting to make ends meet. But Sir James further explicitly intended a far reaching educational advantage in his plan to bring together, in what he saw as the most romantic setting in St. Andrews, a group of mature, enquiring minds. He foresaw an intellectual interplay which would bring the most beneficial results to the University and to the students. What he certainly did was to rededicate to education perhaps the oldest dwelling on the oldest domestic site in St. Andrews which has associations with learning far more venerable than those of the University of which it now forms part.
R. N. Smart.
The writer wishes to record particular indebtedness to Mr. W. Murray Jack, who placed his professional expertise at his disposal and to Mr. G. L. Pride, who made the survey plans of 1950 and the plans for the alterations of 1950/51 available for study and reproduction.