St Andrews is a Scottish town literally named for the patron Saint of our country. You don’t get much more Scottish than that. You can find this University town in the mid-eastern area of the country, in Fife and on the coast somewhere north of Edinburgh. It is perhaps best known for harbouring the oldest University in Scotland – and the 3rd oldest in the English speaking world.
A campus befitting the stature of the University
Yuangeng Image: Zhang/Shutterstock.c0m
St Andrews is so old that its first recorded important kirk is in 747 AD. It was also the sight of a once-famous cathedral, the ruins of which can still be seen. Notably, religion isn’t the only thing that can be accredited to the ancient St. Andrew-ians. This little town is known as the birthplace of Golf. The whole sport. Its golf club was established halfway through the 18th century, around 40 or so years before everyone else.
It is believed that people first settled in this area during the Stone Age, putting people in the area as early as 10,000 BC. Whether or not the stones date back that far we cannot say, but the Vikings liked it. They attacked multiple times and, legend has it, were staved off by Constantine I, who went on to have the church built to commemorate his prowess.
St Andrews & The Reformation
St Andrews played a huge part in the reformation of Scotland. The reformation includes the time period where we changed from a Catholic country to a Protestant country. Anyone with any sense doesn’t care about this anymore – but say the name of the wrong football team in the wrong part of Scotland still earns trouble. What football and religion have to do with each other most of us will never understand, but that is a debate for another time.
So if you have a few days to spend in St Andrews, what do you get up to? Let’s find out in our five-minute guide; as told by an actual Scot (who supports no football teams whatsoever)…
St Andrews The Spiritual Home of Golf
Whether you are just passing through St. Andrews, or whether you intend to go for a full holiday – here are our best sights to see when you get there.
The Old Course
The photogenic Swilcan bridge on the 18th hole of the Old Course.
Image: AdamEdwards/Shutterstock.com
We are not golf-mad here, we swear! However, it is common knowledge that the Scots love golf. Something about those wet and windy courses really makes us feel at home. In St. Andrews you can find the oldest known golf course in the whole entire world. You can even book a day pass and play on it if you like. There are a full eighteen holes and some stunning coastal views on this course. The clubhouse is pretty special too.
Looking for something to do for free in St Andrews with kids? Take them down to the coast and collect up golf balls. You may even be able to sell them back to the players if you have the gift of the gab. If not? Sell them on the internet and make some cash to do other things in St. Andrews.
In an important, golf-related, aside; Swilcan Bridge crosses this course between the 1st and 18th holes. It has become a famous golfing landmark of its own and it doesn’t cost anything to go pose on it. Watch out for flying balls though. No joke.
St Andrews Castle
This is actually an awesome sight that we argued with ourselves over. It deserves the top spot too, you see. St Andrews Castle is a ruined castle which has been partially restored by Historic Environment Scotland. You can go in, have a look around, and imagine how the other half lived. But better than all of this – it has a story!
The legend goes that the Bishop was murdered here in his sleep. When his body was discovered and the assassination made public it triggered a siege. For two whole years the castle was besieged. Rather than sit outside and wait for the castle’s occupants to come out, the attackers built a mine to dig into the castle. The occupants dug a counter mine, and eventually everything descended into the predictable chaos. Essentially, St. Andrews Castle is the only one in Scotland whose history reads like a cartoon featuring “ACME”.
The Eden Mill
Almost predictably, the best rated St Andrews attraction on Trip Advisor is the Eden Mill distillery. Here you can tour the factory where it is made, buy and taste samples of aged cask matures alongside the fruitiest new gins then have brought out, or send your relatives on a tour as a nice gift. The whole experience is apparently exemplary. Alcohol isn’t really top of our list of things to do (for goodness sake – think of the children!) but if it is your bag then you will love this.
The Beach!
Don’t forget that St Andrews is a coastal town. Better yet, it has one of the best known clean beaches in Fife. Being so close to Edinburgh doesn’t usually help with the pollution aspect, but a few years ago Scotland made a dedicated effort to clean up her shores. St Andrews beach is lovely. On a sunny day kids can spend hours looking for crabs, rock-pooling in places, and building sandcastles. You can still do all three of these in the rain but it isn’t as safe.
Other Notable Attractions
For a reasonably small town, St Andrews has all sorts of bits that tourists love. They have so many sights we genu8inely ran out of space. If you still have time to spare in St. Andrews though, try to squeeze in some of these other attractions (just like we did!):
- The Golf Museum – if you like it enough to play it, then the museum seems like a win.
- St Andrews has its own Aquarium – and we are so, so jealous. As well as displaying a wide range of fish you can also see other aquatic related creatures including Seals, Dwarf Crocodiles & Humboldt Penguins. Less aquatic and slightly cuter residents also include Marmosets and a family of Meercats – who fortunately won’t try and flog you car insurance!
Humbolt Pengiuns are one of the popular denizens of the Aquarium.
dean Image bertoncelj/Shutterstock.com
- The University of St Andrews is impressive.
- They have a Botanic Garden.
- You can still visit the ruins of the cathedral, where the reasonably fit can climb the 33m tall St Rule’s Tower and get a view of the city like this:
Image: Jakub Korczyk/Shutterstock.com
Can you Spare Some Time?
If you find you still have time to spare then head on over and spend it with us. Learn about travel, find a new hobby or follow your favourite team. Whatever your choice of entertainment you can probably find it, on Five Minutes Spare.
