ST. Peter’s Church, [184] Peterhead, Aberdeenshire .
The remains of the Church of St. Peter, Peterhead (Fig. 335), consist of the side walls of the chancel and the entire chancel arch, with a square tower projecting outwards in the centre of the west wall of the nave. No other portion of the nave remains. The tower and west wall are late, but the chancel is of the Norman period. The arch is quite plain, and is supported on square jambs having Norman cushion caps.
There is a supposed reference to the church in the Book of Deer, in 1132, concerning a gift consecrated to St. Peter, Columcille, and Drostan, who “were the tutelar saints of the Churches of Peterhead, St. Colms, and Deer, which were the only churches in the district dedicated to these saints.”[185] Their endowments were then gifted to the great Columban Church of Dunkeld, with which they remained till the founding of the Abbey of Deer, in 1218, when, it is believed, the patronage of the Church
of St. Peter, at Peterhead, was conveyed to that abbey by the charter of foundation, now not known to exist.
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