St Martin's Kirk, Haddington

St Martin's Kirk is a Romanesque ruin of red and buff sandstone in its old graveyard among modern houses on the eastern edge of Haddington, one of Scotland's precious few parish churches surviving from the 1100s, the century in which the parish system was set up. In the mid to late 1100s Alexander de St Martin was granted land around Haddington by Countess Ada, mother of William the Lion, and gave it to the Cistercian nunnery of St Mary nearby. John Knox, born in Nungate around 1514, may have worshipped here as a boy, and the chancel was probably pulled down at the Reformation he led, leaving only the nave. Look for the chancel arch in the east wall, a round-headed piscina and mysterious square holes through the walls, perhaps for scaffolding. It is a quick stop, a short walk from St Mary's Church over the Nungate Bridge, with parking on the street.