Seton Collegiate Church

Seton Collegiate Church from the South

The road to North Berwick from Edinburgh leaves the A1 near Tranent. Beyond a further roundabout it heads north east, running closely parallel to the East Coast Main Line railway. After a mile it turns into a dual carriageway, and here you find the easily overlooked brown tourist sign indicating the entrance to Seton Collegiate Church.

The Choir from the West

North Transept

Transepts from the South

The Crossing

The Choir from the East

Stonework from Seton Palace

This sign is well worth looking out for: this is a lovely church, a remarkable oasis of tranquility in an exceptional setting. The church is looked after by Historic Scotland and open to visitors every day from April to September.

From the car park you follow the woodland path that leads you the couple of hundred metres to the church itself. You catch only brief glimpses of it as you approach through the wood and are led around the wall that surrounds the church to the gateway on the eastern side.

The origins of Seton Collegiate Church go back to 1242, the year in which a parish church dedicated to St Mary & Holy Cross was consecrated here by the Bishop of St Andrews. This would have been a rectangular building which later became the nave of the Collegiate Church, and whose foundations can be seen to the west of the surviving building.

In 1434 a side chapel was added by Lady Catherine St Clair to house the tomb of her late husband, Sir John Seton. Part of this side chapel was replaced by the later south transept, other parts can be traced on the ground to the west of the south transept. It was Lady Catherine's grandson, the First Lord Seton, who started to adapt the church to serve as a Collegiate Church, a base for a group of priests whose main role was to pray for the souls of the Seton family. He built much of the choir which now forms the east end of the church and the sacristy, the side room to its north.

The Church from the East

The Church from the West

From the Ruins of the Priests' Houses

Woodland Path to the Church

The Second Lord Seton completed the choir in the 1480s and received permission from the Pope to set up a college of priests in 1492. The Second Lord Seton was killed, together with much of the Scottish aristocracy of the day, at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, and further development of his church was carried on by his widow, Lady Janet Seton. She added the north transept in 1541.

In 1544 parts of the church were badly damaged by an English army under the Earl of Hertford (see our Historical Timeline). It was Lady Janet who oversaw the repairs. These involved the demolition of the 1434 side chapel and its partial replacement with the south transept. She also built a tower, the spire of which was never completed beyond the attractive stump you see today.

Lady Janet Seton died in 1558, 45 years after her husband's death at the Battle of Flodden and presumably at a considerable age. Two years later, in 1560, the Reformation swept across Scotland and the religious community here was dissolved. For a while the church returned to its first use in service of the Parish, but in 1580 the parish of Seton was joined with that of Tranent and the need of a separate church disappeared.

In the years that followed the church reverted to a private chapel for the Seton family. It was damaged by zealots during the Wars of the Covenant in the mid 1600s, and the Setons' support for the Jacobite cause led to it being desecrated again in 1715, this time by the Lothian Militia.

Some time during this period the original nave, the only part of the church without a vaulted stone roof, fell into disuse and was demolished. The church later passed to the Earls of Wemyss who restored the surviving parts to become a family burial vault, and they in turn passed it into state care in 1946.

Seton Collegiate Church is an impressive building with a friendly atmosphere. The transepts, choir and sacristy are in good condition and full of fascinating detail, from the possible tomb of the Second Lord Seton to the cracked dutch bell hung in the tower from 1577 and now on show in the crossing. In the grounds are the remains of a number of buildings thought to be priests' houses, and there is a display of stonework recovered from Seton Palace, destroyed in 1715 and later replaced by Seton House which now stands to the west of the church.

Sunlight on Tombstones, Choir