“The memory of great men is no less useful than their presence.” George, 4th Earl of Winton.

The Seton's of Cariston, and Burial at St. Drostan's in Markinch, and St. Kenneth's, Kennoway, and later of St. Kea, Treskerby in Cornwall

The parish church of Markinch, prominently situated on a mound at the highest point of the town, and dedicated to the Pictish St. Drostan, is recorded in documents from the 11th century on, though it may well be of earlier origin. Though the body of the church is a plain Georgian 'preaching box' of 1786, the adjoining tower is medieval, and dates to the late 11th-early 12th centuries.

Of exceptionally fine masonry, it is very similar to the tower of St. Rule's Church in St Andrews, and may be a copy of it on a smaller scale. It is crowned by a rather incongruous small Classical spire, which was added in 1807.  There are Seton burials located between here and at the nearby St. Kenneth's in Kennoway.

In Kennoway, The Causeway or the Old Parish Church and Churchyard with Session and Watch House, has an age which from its structure, must be very great. The lintel of a door which is supposed to be of the same date as an addition made to the original edifice, has 1619 inscribed on it.

The old church of Kennoway was given by Merleswain, son of Colbain, to the Priory of St Andrews about the middle of the 12th century. The church was dedicated to St Cainnichi or St Kenneth. Later, it became one of the traditional burial grounds of the Seton's of Cariston, who were also Baron-Baillie's of Kennoway.

The earliest known "church" in Kennoway was thought to date back to St. Kenneth, who first preached the Christian faith in the East of Fife in the 6th. century AD. Records also account for a church in Kennoway under the cannery of St. Andrews in 1177.

There are no remains of the original church, and the present parish church of Kennoway was erected in 1850. A survey of the graveyard monuments of Kennoway Churchyard was carried out in June 1998.

The Seton House appears in local history as the dower house of Blackhall Castle (also a Seton family residence) and as the town house of Captain Robert Seton of Drummaird. However, the Seton coat of arms reported to be sited over the main entrance is not evident on this building. There is however a fine coat of arms set above a garage door a few yards N of this site. On the afternoon of 2nd May 1679, the Archbishop Sharp crossed the Forth, and lodged that night in Captain Seton's house, still standing in the village of Kennoway, before his murder on Magus Muir.

The date of the earliest entry in the parochial register, is supposed to be in 1634, and an entry, bearing the date 1635, is also perfectly distinct. After this, on a subsequent page, comes July 1638 ; and though the book in which these dates are found, is not in a state of very good preservation, yet the details of the transactions of the kirk-session, given with great minuteness, and often showing an extreme degree of vigilance and rigour in the exercise of authority, may be gathered from the last-mentioned date, with few, if any exceptions, continuously down to December 1675.

From this time, however, to 1690, a period of about fifteen years, there is an entire blank ; and the same thing occurs between 1755 and 1761. From this last date, up to the present time, the records are entire. What could have occasioned the blanks above referred to, it is impossible to say determinately: but the probability is, that the minutes had been originally kept, and that the books which contained them have been lost: for the volumes preserved are filled with minutes of transactions in regular succession, and the blanks occur in both cases between the conclusion of one volume and the commencement of another.

The situation of the parish church in the village of Kennoway, renders it convenient for by far the greater part of the population; there being in that village, and within the compass of about half a mile around it, upwards of 1100 inhabitants. The distance of the church from the most remote extremities of the parish is between two and three miles. The age of the church must, from its structure, and the height to which the surrounding burying-ground has accumulated above its foundation, be very great; but there are no means of ascertaining the exact period at which it was built. The lintel of a door, which is supposed to be of the same date with an addition that had been made to the original edifice, has 1619 inscribed on it.

The present state of repair of the church, however, notwithstanding its great age, is exceedingly good. Perhaps it is to be regretted, considering its size, as compared with the Population, that it is so good ; and that such a sum as nearly L. 200 was expended in putting it into its present comfortable state, so lately as in the summer of 1832.

The number of sittings in it was at one time 463, while the number of families belonging to the Establishment in the parish is 238, and that of individuals of all ages 1027, exceeding the number of sittings in the church.