Historical Information:

The same Culdee monks – the servants of God – who had based the first Christian church in the Garioch at Rocharl around 800AD, broadened their influence by establishing a dependent chapel at the foot of Selbie Hill.   In due passage of time, it became part of the Parish of the Garioch, and in 1195 it became a ecclesiastical appendage of the Abbey of Lindores, Fife when the chapel was dedicated to St Serf.   After the Reformation, it again reverted to Montkegy till the Restoration of 1660 when the king rewarded the brother of the Earl Marishal by creating the new Earldom of Kintore.  The newly elevated peer promptly renamed his estate Keith Hall, replacing the ancient names of Caskieben and Montkegy to incorporate the family name.   Though mostly a quiet, rural parish, by 1671 it is noted that Quakerism had taken a deep hold in the area and Garioch Presbytery were charged to quell the growing local threat.  Six years later, many of the Friends were arrested and lodged in Inverurie’s new Tolbooth before being despatched under guard to Edinburgh .   Montkegy chapel fell into disuse in 1773, and today no trace can be found in the tidy graveyard which crowns the hillock it occupied. Further information is available from “150 Years of St Andrew’s Parish Church ” Booklet – available from St Andrew’s Church office and “Inverurie and the Earldom of the Garioch” by Dr John Davidson DD.