The Provost

Holiday in Fife.

Opposite the Ceres Inn surveying the passing scene from his niche in the wall is the Toby-Jug figure of the Rev. Thomas Buchanan, Minister of Ceres 1578-99, known as "the Provost of Ceres". This squat, grinning little figure has a colourful history and has done a great deal of travelling in his time. The statue was the work of a local stonemason called John Howie, born in 1820 and brought up in Saughtree Cottage in Ceres.
The statue is reputed to be a likeness of the Rev Thomas Buchanan, a man of great learning and a nephew of George Buchanan, the famous historian. He was minister of the village Kirk and the last Provost of
Ceres, being presented to the post in 1578 by King James the Sixth. The statue's original resting place was in the gardens of Kirklands, the old church manse that once occupied what is now the church car park,
where he was placed in 1837 by his first owner the Rev Joseph Crichton, minister of Ceres for almost 60 years.