IN reviewing possible subjects for articles in this series I was taken aback by my omission of Linlithgow: St Michael’s, an exceptionally fine and important pre- Reformation building. For many years I saw it several times a week from the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway, with its modernist steeple as often as not gleaming in sunlight. Some years ago I acquired an excellent guide to St Michael’s, written by the late Very Rev Dr David Steel, and most of what follows is based on his text.
The present church was constructed in the 15th and 16th centuries, but it appears to have been built on the site of a much earlier religious settlement, probably dating from the 4th century AD, and very likely founded by St Ninian or another missionary from Whithorn, rather than by a Columban mission from Iona, as suggested by Dr Steel. The Lothians later came under Northumbrian influence, and by the 12th century Linlithgow was an administrative centre for the Church throughout the Lothians and part of Stirlingshire. In 1138 David I, as part of his programme of linking the Church in Scotland with the monarchy, assigned all the property of the church at Linlithgow to the Cathedral Church of St Andrews.