Brechin Cathedral

About the year 1000, masons raised a round tower immediately to the southwest of where the cathedral now stands, building it to a height of some 26 metres (86 feet) with a base circumference of 50 feet and walls of exceptional quality. Its narrow doorway, set well above ground level, was carved with a Crucifixion scene on the arch and with robed ecclesiastics — one holding a crosier, the other a Tau-shaped staff — on its splayed sides.

During the 14th century a hexagonal stone spire was added to cap the tower, giving it the profile it retains today. The cathedral also came to house two rare pieces of 11th-century Scottish stone carving: the so-called Brechin hogback, which fuses Celtic and Scandinavian motifs and ranks as the most elaborate known Ringerike-style carving in Scotland, and St Mary's Stone, a cross-slab whose circular border around a Virgin and Child motif echoes the ornament on the tower doorway.

The cathedral itself dates from the 13th century, built in the Pointed Gothic style as the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brechin. It served that role until the Scottish Reformation swept through Scotland in the 16th century, after which the building continued in use as a parish church but never again as a Catholic cathedral.

In 1806 a programme of restoration work intended to repair the ageing cathedral instead did it serious harm, altering and damaging fabric that had survived for centuries. The scars of that intervention remained part of the building's fabric for almost a hundred years, a reminder of how well-intentioned repair could do as much damage as neglect.

A further restoration, completed in 1902, undid much of the 1806 restorers' work and left visible today the western gable with its flamboyant window, a Gothic doorway, the massive square tower, a much-truncated choir, and the original nave pillars and clerestory. New stained glass installed in the chancel during this period is now reckoned among the finest in Scotland.

Scott Rennie served as minister of Brechin Cathedral between 1999 and 2009, continuing its long life as a working congregation. In February 2020 the Presbytery of Angus agreed a motion to dissolve that congregation, transferring ownership of the building to the General Trustees of the Church of Scotland with instructions to close and sell it. A local committee had hoped to mark the cathedral's 800th anniversary on 7 June 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic made the planned celebration impossible.

The cathedral closed its doors for the final time as a sanctified church at a special service on 28 November 2021, bringing its centuries-long role as a place of worship to a close. Since then a committee of trustees led by Caroline Carnegie, Duchess of Fife, has taken over responsibility for the building's care, with the stated aim of restoring it as a focal point and hub for both the local community and visiting tourists.