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Edinburgh, Leith, 119 Constitution Street, St James Church
Church (19th Century), Joiners Shop (20th Century)
Site Name Edinburgh, Leith, 119 Constitution Street, St James Church
Classification Church (19th Century), Joiners Shop (20th Century)
Alternative Name(s) St James Episcopal Church
Canmore ID 74065
Site Number NT27NE 111
NGR NT 27202 76108
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/74065
- Council Edinburgh, City Of
- Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District City Of Edinburgh
- Former County Midlothian
NT27NE 111 27202 76108
NT27NE 71 27227 76113 Church Hall
NT27NE 616 27246 76102 Rectory
Architect: Sir Gilbert Scott, 1863.
F F Clark, London redecoration 1869
Small early gothic cruciform-plan church with narthex, aisled nave, apsidal E end and tall SE tower, separate church officer's house to NW, adjoining hall. Cream sandstone, squared and snecked rubble with polished dressings. Base course; moulded cill course; sloping cills; off-set gablet-capped buttresses; roll-moulded pointed-arch principal openings with hoodmoulds; chamfered reveals to lesser openings; boarded timber doorways with ornamental ironwork.
Ecclesiastical building now secularised and used as temporary joiner's workshop, most of the fittings and the stained glass have been removed (1992). The interior had been re-seated and given a new pulpit in 1908 by Peddie and Washington Browne. The reredos of 1873, designed by Clarke and executed by Thomas Earp, alabaster, marble and mosaic, was moved without listed building consent to Balgone House, North Berwick. (Historic Scotland)
Desk Based Assessment (January 2007 - March 2007)
NT 2720 7610 Desk-based assessment and building fabric investigation were undertaken during January to March 2007 to inform an option assessment for the former church St James, Leith, now used as a joiner workshop. The building was believed to be by George Gilbert Scott (1862-6). Historical research revealed that the drawings held by RCAHMS were of an early design stage, probably before 1861. They show a standard
mid-Victorian Gothic Revival church layout, with rectangular ground plan reputedly modelled on Brechin Cathedral. Research uncovered drawings of a later second scheme much closer to the structure as built. These drawings illustrate a shift from an English style, typical of Gilbert Scott, to a more continental European
influence that was to become characteristic for the generation of architects after Gilbert Scott. It is commonly known that Robert Rowand Anderson worked on this project as a superintendent for Gilbert Scott. Anderson was to become Scotland's pre-eminent architect at the end of the 19th century. The new research suggests that Anderson was also the author of the revised design. It shares characteristics with subsequent buildings by Anderson such as Christ Church, Falkirk, 1862-4 (rounded apse), or an unexecuted scheme for St Andrew, Kelso (tower). This would make St James' Episcopal Church in Leith the first project to demonstrate Anderson's ideas as a designer, although he was still working under Gilbert Scott's practice name.
Archive deposited with RCAHMS.
Funder: City of Edinburgh Council.
