The Filming of Karen Pirie in St Andrews
Filming at the harbour. X Post by Val McDermid, Author of ‘The Distant Echo’ (@valmcdermid) On 3 May 2021, filming for the first series of detective drama Karen Pirie (ITV, 2022, UK) took place at the St Andrews Cathedral grounds. This marked the first day of filming in St Andrews, which continued each weekday, and occasionally into the night, until 11 May (The Courier, 6 May 2021). Based on Fife author Val McDermid’s best-selling novel, The Distant Echo (2003), the three-part series follows the reopening of the unsolved murder case of...
Read MoreThe St Andrews Shipwreck that inspired a Local Film
On 1 October 1912, the Norwegian vessel Princess Wilhelmina was caught in a storm and shipwrecked in St Andrews. The ship’s crew was rescued by the St Andrews Lifeboat team, who managed to reach the ship before it beached on West Sands. Whether it was due to the success of the rescue or the recollection of a more tragic 1881 local shipwreck, this event, “watched by thousands”, was widely-discussed and photographed in town [Dundee Evening Telegraph, 1 October 1912, 1]. In some photographs, we notice the crowd gathered on the rocks where today’s aquarium stands, watching the wreck...
Read MoreAn Image of St Andrews in 1845
St Andrews, North Street, Fishergate, Women and Children Baiting the Lines (c. 1845)The earliest surviving films of St Andrews from 1916. The photograph known as St. Andrews, North Street, Fishergate, Women and Children Baiting the Line depicts a group of fisherfolk, predominantly women and children, baiting fishing lines. Found today in the National Galleries Scotland, it was taken by the hugely influential photographers, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, and is estimated to date from 1845. Yet, this image would be revisited and reworked throughout the...
Read MoreWilliam and Kate: The Digital Reconstruction of St Andrews
The tourist industry in St Andrews has changed significantly in the 21st century, now defined as much by Prince William’s four years at the University, as it is by the more traditional markers (Golf and the University). As the birthplace of Prince William and Catherine Middleton’s love story, faded cut-outs of the couple’s faces sit in souvenir shop windows, prospective students learn which halls the couple resided in, while a coffee shop pokes fun at this popular fascination with a sign that reads “Where Kate dumped Wills.” Given such international interest in the Royal family, it...
Read MoreFrom the Alps to St Andrews: Cedric Thorpe Davie and the production of Snowbound (1948)
While living on North Street and setting up the Department of Music, Cedric Thorpe Davie wrote the score for Gainsborough's espionage drama, Snowbound (1948).
Read MoreThe Filming of Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius in St Andrews
On Sunday 24th August 2003, filming began on the Old Course in St Andrews.
Read More