Brechin Cathedral

Brechin owes its origins to the medieval Cathedral, the oldest building in the Burgh, and the Celtic monastery which preceded it. The first recorded reference to a church in Brechin is King Kenneth II of Scotland (971-995) giving ‘the great city (ie. monastery) of Brechin to the Lord’, endowing the monastic community with lands and having a church built. Brechin was the mother church of the provinces of Angus and Mearns, a centre from which the Culdee monks went out to minister to the local communities. The Cathedral houses an important collection of early medieval sculpture created for this early monastic community.