St Regulus Chapel, Cromarty

A chapel to St Regulus (or St Rule) once stood at the northeast end of the graveyard near Cromarty Castle (later Cromarty House). The short path to the burial ground is opposite the vast tunnel entrance to Cromarty House (erected by the laird of Cromarty so that he wouldn't see the comings and goings of his servants and tradesmen!)

There are various legends surrounding St Regulus or St Rule, one of which is that he was a 4^th-century Greek monk who was custodian of the relics of the martyred St Andrew. In response to a vision, he is said to have taken the relics with him as he travelled westward in his search for a place to found a church for his saint. Tradition has it that he landed at St Andrews and founded his Christian settlement there. Other traditions place the events much later, in the 8^th century.

Parts of the ruined chapel were still visible in the lifetime of Hugh Miller (1802-56), Cromarty's famous geologist. In his 'Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland' he writes,

'The ruins of the old chapel of St. Regulus occupy the edge of a projecting angel, in which the burying ground terminates towards the east. Accident and decay seemed to wrought their worst upon them…What is now, however, only a broken-edged ruin, and a few shapeless mounds, was three hundred years ago, a picturesque-looking high-gabled house of one story'.