On 4 February 1910 Ninian Patrick Crichton Stuart, known to his family as Ringan, died at the House of Falkland just a few weeks short of his third birthday. He was the eldest son of Lord and Lady Ninian Crichton Stuart who owned Falkland Estate. A few days later, after a Roman Catholic service in the Chapel Royal at Falkland Palace, he was buried on this site, snow was falling and the ground and trees were white. Two years later his parents commissioned Reginald Fairlie, a friend, fellow Catholic and architect whose family home was nearby Myres Castle, Auchtermuchty, to design a chapel to commemorate their young son and which might also serve as the Roman Catholic parish church for the village of Falkland.