South Leith Parish Church, Kirkgate, Leith, Edinburgh, Leith, Edinburgh

Entry Name: South Leith Parish Church, Kirkgate, Leith, Edinburgh

Listing Name: 1 and 2 Kirkgate, St Mary's (South Leith Parish) Church (C of S) with Graveyard, Walls, Gates and Railings

Listing Date: 14 December 1970

Category: A

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 364647

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB27466

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Edinburgh, Leith, Kirkgate, South Leith Parish Church
St Mary's Church, South Leith
South Kirk of Leith

ID on this website: 200364647

Location: Edinburgh

County: Edinburgh

Town: Edinburgh

Electoral Ward: Leith

Traditional County: Midlothian

Tagged with: Church building

Description

Thomas Hamilton, 1848, incorporating some late 15th century remains. Rectangular-plan aisled decorated gothic church with square-plan 4-stage engaged NW tower, small later vestry to SE. Cream sandstone, stugged ashlar with polished dressings. Base course; eaves cornice; pointed-arched windows; deeply chamfered reveals to aisle windows; geometric and flowing tracery to aisle and clerestory windows; hood-moulds and label-stops (mostly masques/heads) to openings (apart from aisle windows); off-set diagonal buttresses with crocketted pinnacles.

TOWER: 1st stage with round-arched doorway, timber door with blind tracery and decorative iron hinges to E; bipartite window to N; string course above. 2nd stage with paired lancets to E and N; sloping string course above. 3rd stage with square heraldic panel under stepped roll-moulding with clock above to N, E and W; sloping string course above. Top stage with chamfered corners and tall louvred bipartite window to all faces; decoratively pierced and cusped parapet on blind traceried corbel table with masque pendants.

NAVE AND AISLES: E entrance (liturgical W) front gabled with cross finial; round-arched bipartite window to centre, string course and large 5-light window with flowing tracery above; round-arched moulded doorways to side aisles, doors detailed as above. W front (liturgical E) gabled with cross finial; bipartite window flanked by cusped arrow slit windows to centre, string course and large 6-light window with flowing tracery above. 7-bay aisle elevations (base of tower forming easternmost bay of N aisle) with lean-to roofs, bipartite aisle windows divided by buttresses; westernmost bay of S aisle with small window;

2 short gabletted wallhead stacks to each side of nave.

VESTRY: 20th century small gabled single storey rectangular-plan vestry to NW with rectangular cusped bipartite windows and curved gablet.

Square leaded panes. Slate roof with metal flashings; 4 wallhead stacks (see above). Moulded skews.

INTERIOR: 5-bay nave with substantial octagonal stone piers to arcade; panelled aisle roofs with pierced braces springing from carved mask corbels; ornate carved hammerbeam roof springing from carved mask corbels stops; raked E and W galleries with blind tracery balustrades, organ in W gallery. Vaulted E vestibule with foliate capitals to columns. W vestibule with floor of pre-Reformation grave slabs. Furnishings: elaborate marble and sandstone pulpit with prophet figures in columned niches (Sydney Mitchell & Wilson, 1893-4); Renaissance-style marble font; galleries and W screen dated 1909, framework of cusped tracery to organ pipes; extensive stained glass scheme (Ballantine studio 1889-93), Christ preaching to E window, Last Supper to W window.

GRAVEYARD: large number of elaborate 19th century gravestones and monuments; some 18th century stones with memento mori carvings. 13-arch gothic battlemented burial enclosures to W wall; 7-arch Tudor gothic arcade with quatrefoil carved parapet and shields with decorative cast-iron tie-beams, dated 1826-34. Classical enclosure to right of Constitutions Street entrance. Enclosures of Ramsay (1806-71), Wood (1795-1878) and Lawson families to SE wall. Empty classical enclosure to S encased by gothic arched with tombstones dated from 1830s onwards.

WALLS, GATEPIERS AND RAILINGS: tall rubble walls enclosing churchyard, ashlar and render to Constitution Street with corniced blind arches in channelled and cusped jambs; octagonal panelled gatepiers to Kirkgate and Constitution Street entrances; fleur-de-lis railings and gates.

Statement of Interest

Statutory address amended (2012). Building was previously listed as 5A-5C Kirkgate.

External Links

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.