Field Visit
Date 20 August 1920
Event ID 1114450
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1114450
Parish Church, Corstorphine.
The present parish church (Fig. 38), except for its modern accretions, represents the old collegiate church. Its plan is exceptional, comprising a rectangular chancel, a nave less in width and height, transepts at the west end of the nave, and a tower surmounted by a low-set but picturesque spire of stone, beyond which a small porch extends to the main entrance through the tower. From the north wall of the chancel projects a two-storied revestry or sacristy. The north aisle and transept are modern: a drastic restoration was carried out in 1828, when the nave was largely rebuilt, the north transept and 17th-century aisle were removed, and a new transept and aisle erected. Further restorative work was done in recent times.
[See RCAHMS 1929 pp.18-23 for a detailed architectural description and notes on the bell, hour-glass and 12 inscriptions and sepulchral monuments that pre-date 1707].
HISTORICAL NOTE. A chapel, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, was founded by Sir Adam Forrester of Corstorphine, ‘near to the parish church’ (1) some time before his death in 1405 (2). This Adam Forrester was the first of his name in Corstorphine, having been a burgess of Edinburgh when he was granted the dominical lands of Corstorphine by William More of Abercorn, a grant confirmed in 1376. On the chapel which he founded or built King James I conferred, in 1426, an annual grant of £24,including a revenue of £4, which had been due to Adam Forrester, for the support of three chaplains (3). Payment of this annuity (£20) is noted regularly in the Exchequer Rolls thereafter. In 1429 Margaret Forrester, widow of Sir Adam, and her son Sir John, gave a further sum to support two chaplains and two ‘clerks’ in the Chapel (4). This is the date given in the inscribed tablet to Nicholas Bannatyne, the provost, as that of the inception of the college. But the institution of the collegiate establishment was due to the Bishop of St. Andrews, in 1444, proceeding upon a papal bull of the same year (5). In the entry in the Exchequer Rolls of 1473 the description runs, ‘the collegiate church of St. John the Baptist’, and, in 1488, ‘the chapel of St. John, now the collegiate church’. The establishment consisted of a, provost and eight prebendaries, the provost having the revenues of the parochial churches of Ratho and Clerkington, and the prebendaries respectively the ‘teind sheaves’ of the vills of ‘Gogar, Hadingstoun, Haltoun, Dalmahoy, Bonyngtoun, Platt, Nortoun and Byres’, with certain other revenues (6). As is clear from the earlier references above, the original parish church was a separate and independent structure. When still only a chapel it was attached to the abbey of Holyrood, from which it was dissolved in 1621, when it was erected into the parsonage of Corstorphine (7). Parish church and collegiate church were still separate institutions as late as 1633 (8). Not till 1646 were arrangements made ‘for taking downe of the old Paroch Kirk’ and adding an aisle to the other Kirk (9). From that time therefore the old collegiate church took over the parochial duties.
RCAHMS 1929, visited 20 August 1920.
(1) Reg. Mag. Sig. , s.a., 1426, No. 35; (2) Reg. S. Egidii, No. 28; (3) Reg. Mag. Sig., s.a., No.35; (4) Reg. Mag. Sig., s.a., No. 121; (5) Charters of Collegiate Churches in Midlothian (Bann. Club), pp. 298-304; (6) Ibid.; (7) Acts Parl Scot., iv, p. 677; (8) Ibid., v, p. 158; (9) Charters of Colleg. Churches, p. lxxv.
