Overview of Kilconquhar

An attractive village in the East Neuk of Fife, Kilconquhar is situated on a knoll on the north shore of Kilconquhar Loch just north of Elie. Comprising the once separate neighbouring villages of Barnyards and Kilconquhar, the village is said to derive its name from the kil or cell of the hermit Connacher. The old name for the village is perpetuated in the 18th-century Kinneuchar Inn which more closely reflects its local pronunciation.

The Gothic-style parish church dates from the 1820s, but an earlier church here was cared for during the Middle Ages by the nuns of North Berwick. It overlooks Kilconquhar Loch where witches are said to have been drowned and where today the game of curling occasionally takes place when the water is frozen. To the east of the village is Kilconquhar House (a former seat of the earls of Lindsay) and the remains of a castle built in 1547 by Sir John Bellenden, Lord Justice Clerk in the reign of James V.