St Martin’s Kirk, Haddington Church Building, Photos, East Lothian History, Location

St Martin’s Kirk : Historic Haddington Church Building

Historic Religious Building in East Lothian: Architecture in Scotland

post updated 2 December 2023

St Martin’s Kirk lies just east of town centre, Haddington, East Lothian

The ruined nave of a Romanesque church.

St Martin’s Kirk Haddington

St Martin’s Kirk was altered in the 13th century.

Location: Bullet Loan, Nungate, east side of Haddington

According to Historic Scotland The church of St Martin in the Nungait was maintained by the Cistercian sisters of St Mary’s Nunnery, which lay 1km to the east. John Knox, the architect of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland (in 1560), was born in the Nungait.

He probably went to St Martin’s as a boy. All that remains of the church is the rectangular nave. The chancel to its east was pulled down at the Reformation.

Photographs © Adrian Welch

St Martin’s Church, Haddington is a ruined church in the east side of the town. The building is a rare example of a 12th-century parish church

The structure was originally attached to the nunnery of St Mary’s at Nungate. The nunnery was later destroyed by the English.

St Martin’s continued to function as a Protestant place of worship after the Reformation. It later fell into decay and was abandoned. Historic Environment Scotland established the site as a scheduled monument in 1921.

The ruined church, originally dedicated to St Martin, is located in the Haddington suburb of Nungate in East Lothian, Scotland. Rectangular in design, the church originally consisted of a nave and chancel.

The roofless nave is the only surviving section of the original medieval structure. Constructed in the mid-12th century, the building was remodelled during the 13th century when vaulting and six external buttresses were added.