Canongate Kirk
Photos taken in August 2011
Canongate Kirk
The Kirk of the Canongate, or Canongate Kirk, serves the Parish of Canongate in Edinburgh's Old Town, in Scotland. It is a congregation of the Church of Scotland. The parish includes the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Scottish Parliament. It is also the parish church of Edinburgh Castle, even though the castle is detached from the rest of the parish. The wedding of Zara Phillips, the Queen's granddaughter, and Mike Tindall, took place at the church on 30 July 2011.
The Canongate was a separate burgh before it was formally absorbed by Edinburgh
in 1856. By the late 1970s, the lower part of the Royal Mile, including the
Canongate, had become unfashionable and run down. The local population was
declining. The Kirk was threatened with closure, which was successfully resisted
by the minister and congregation. Since then, circumstances have changed
radically - notably with the construction of new flats in the vicinity as well
as the new Scottish Parliament building.
The church was founded in 1688 and completed in 1691. The master mason in charge
was James Smith. A plaque on the front of the church bears witness to it having
been built through a large bequest from a local merchant.
"In 1688 King James VII ordained that the Mortification of Thos. Moodie, granted
in 1649 to build a Church, should be applied to the erection of this structure"
Previously the residents of the Canongate had used the Abbey Church adjacent to
the Palace of Holyroodhouse, but King James VII ordered the construction of the
new Kirk of the Canongate, allowing the Abbey Church to be converted into a
Chapel for the Order of the Thistle. (The current Thistle Chapel is attached to
St Giles' Cathedral).
Architecturally, the Kirk has a Dutch-style end gable and a curious, small doric-columned
portico over the entrance. Although outwardly rectangular, the Kirk's interior
has a cruciform layout (highly unusual for a post-Reformation, pre-Victorian
Church of Scotland building). The Kirk's interior was extensively remodelled in
1882, with the inclusion of a pipe organ and a central pulpit. These
unsympathetic alterations were removed in the early 1950s, along with the
galleries. The resulting reordering considerably increased the levels of light;
the original dignified simplicity of the Kirk was able to be appreciated once
more. The Kirk was further restored in 1991 by the Stewart Todd partnership,
followed by the installation of a new Danish-built Frobenius pipe organ in 1998,
in memory of the late Very Rev Dr Ronald Selby Wright. This was the 1000th organ
to be built by the Frobenius company.
Following the Disruption of 1843, a Holyrood Free Church congregation was
formed. A church was built in front of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, but the
building was closed in 1915 (when that congregation united with Abbeyhill United
Free Church, becoming Holyrood Abbey Church, located in Dalziel Place.) The
former Holyrood Free Church building was reopened as The Queen's Gallery in
2003, to house exhibitions from the Royal Collection.
The Canongate Churchyard is the resting place of several Edinburgh notables
including the economist Adam Smith, the philosopher and Smith's biographer
Dugald Stewart, Agnes Maclehose (the "Clarinda" of Robert Burns), David Rizzio,
the murdered private secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the poet Robert
Fergusson, whose statue in bronze by David Annand stands outside the kirk gate.
Bishop James Ramsay is also buried here.
The Kirk is in regular use for Sunday services, as well as for concerts. The
Kirk is extensively used as a venue for music during the annual Edinburgh
Festival, as is the Kirk's nearby hall - the "Harry Younger Hall" (which is
known as "Venue 13" for the duration of the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe;
Venue 13 is run jointly by the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and the
Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama). The Kirk was previously the regimental
chapel of The Royal Scots Regiment of the British Army and is now the regimental
chapel of The Royal Regiment of Scotland.
Canongate Kirk has been served by several well-known former ministers, two
having also served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland. Thomas Wilkie was twice Moderator - in 1701 and 1704. The Very
Reverend Dr Ronald Selby Wright, known as the "Radio Padre" for his famous
wartime broadcasts, was minister from 1937 until 1977 and served as Moderator in
1972. Whilst Dr Selby Wright was away on wartime service as an Army Chaplain,
the Revd George MacLeod (later the Very Revd Lord MacLeod of Fuinary, founder of
the Iona Community and Moderator in 1957) served as locum. Dr Selby Wright was
succeeded as minister by the Reverend Charles Robertson LVO MA, who retired in
2005.
The current minister (since 22 June 2006) is the Reverend Neil N. Gardner MA BD
(who was previously minister at Alyth and an Army Chaplain in the Black Watch
Regiment).
Text from Wikipedia
