Our Story
A house of prayer has stood here from at least 1150, when the lands of Foules were granted by King David I to William Maule for military services. In 1170, a charter granted by Maule confirmed his nephew, Thomas, as Parson of Foules. In 1177, Maule granted a charter to the Prior and Canons of St Andrews, passing the Chapel to them. In 1242, the Bishop of St Andrews, David de Bernham, dedicated the Church of Foules to its patron saint, St Marnan (missionary to the Picts).
The lands of Foules passed from the Maule family to the Mortimer family and then the Gray family by marriages. Around 1450, Sir Andrew Gray, first Lord of Gray, undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. On his safe return - and perhaps in gratitude - he and his wife built the present church and established a community, or college, of clergy. The Grays could hold their own among the high-ranking families of Scotland, and Sir Andrew was unstinting in the furnishing and fitting out of his creation: its simple exterior, on the traditional east-west orientation, belied the riches and exuberant craftsmanship within.
It is believed that the paintings were produced in the late 15th century. In the mid-16th century, the Reformation purged Catholicism and introduced the Protestant faith. This made religion more accessible to the ordinary people, but it also unleashed a tide of destruction, fuelled by John Knox, with the iconoclasts destroying almost all medieval stained glass and religious sculpture and paintings. In 1612, the Synod of Fife made an order to destroy the 'paintrie on the ruid laft' in St Marnock's. The 7th Lord Gray ignored the requirement to get rid of 'idolatry', so the church survived relatively intact.
What survives gives us a fascinating insight into both the original appearance and also the rituals of the Catholic pre-Reformation church. There are stone basins for holy water, a magnificent font, a sacrament house to hold the consecrated host and a pair of elaborately-carved wooden doors. These came from the rood screen, which once separated the nave from the chancel (its former position is marked by corbels). Above the screen was a loft, and the whole elaborate structure was surmounted by the most spectacular piece of artwork in the church, the magnificent Crucifixion.
The original roof was barrel-vaulted. The present magnificent open timber roof dates from an 1889 restoration.
Rood Screen and Loft
The rood screen (‘rood’ means a cross) stretched across the church and separated the chancel – the most sacred part of the church, containing the high altar - from the nave, to which the laity were confined. Its openwork carving would allow tantalising chinks of colour and candlelight to filter through from the ceremonies within. The high altar was the most magnificent, but not the only one in the church; it was common practice for patrons to endow side altars for the good of their souls. These were commonly sited against the rood screen (or even within it if it was ‘double-sided’), where they were illuminated by a pair of opposing windows.
Only the doors of the original rood screen remain. These are splendidly carved, with pillars, tracery and linen-fold decoration. The original position of the rood screen, partway up the aisle, is indicated by projecting stones or corbels which supported the first-floor loft and the steps leading up to it. The remainder of the current rood screen dates from the 1889 restoration.
The rood loft may have been used for preaching or by musicians, but its main function was to display Christ’s cross and so to proclaim the Christian message the length and breadth of the church. In the case of Fowlis though, the cross was supplanted by the splendid painting showing the whole crucifixion scene. The panels of saints and apostles now mounted on the east gable originally held sway along the loft balcony.
Rood Screen Doors
Inscription: Now fixed to the (modern) frame below the Crucifixion, but possibly once on the rood loft balcony, this somewhat baffling inscription in abbreviated mediaeval Latin records the founding of the church by Andrew Lord Gray and his wife Elizabeth Wemyss on his return from a pilgrimage to Rome. It also, in rather cryptic form, informs us when this occurred – 1453 – which is why we can be so confident in assigning a date to the church.
Reconstruction of the rood loft and screen.
Source: Apted & Robinson (1961-2): 'Late Fifteenth Century Church Paintings from Guthrie and Foulis Easter', PSAS, 95, 262-279.
Imaginative reconstruction of the rood loft and screen.
Source: Celia Knight, undergraduate dissertation, the University of Edinburgh, 2014.
Contact
Get in touch for questions or visits
stmarnocksfowlis@gmail.com
© 2025. All rights reserved.
Scottish Charity
Friends of St Marnock's
SC054653