Leuchars – A Norman Kirk and Lunch at Balgove Larder

St Athernase Church

St Athernase stands on a mound in the middle of Leuchars, above Main Street, and there's parking on the streets round about. Its east end, the chancel and the rounded apse, was built in the 1180s, and it's often called the finest Romanesque building in Fife. Tiers of blind round arches run round the outside, with a line of carved corbels under the roof. An eight-sided bell tower was set on top centuries later, and the nave behind is Victorian. The graveyard rings the church, and its older stones are carved with symbols of mortality. The church opens inside on Tuesdays from 10am to 2pm, with guides on hand, and at other times by appointment. Inside, the chancel arch is cut with zigzag and chequer patterns. There's part of a 9th-century carved cross-slab too, and the burial slab of Sir William Bruce of Earlshall.

Balgove Larder

Lunch

Balgove Larder is about 14 minutes' drive south-east, at Strathtyrum on the edge of St Andrews: a farm shop, butchery and café. The kitchen cooks with meat reared and vegetables grown on the farm, and other local produce, wherever it can. The café opens every day from 9am to 4.30pm, with lunch from noon to 3pm, and takes no bookings, so tables go to whoever turns up.