Canongate
Kirk, Edinburgh
17th century
Click on photos to enlarge
Notes in italics from Pevsner Architectural
Guides,
Edinburgh by John Gifford, Colin McWilliam and David Walker (1991),
Yale University Press.
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Designed by James Smith
(1645-1731) and opened in 1691 as the parish church of the burgh of
Canongate (previously the nave of Holyrood Abbey was the parish church). ...
The plan - unique among C17 Scottish churches - is a Latin cross with an
aisled three-bay nave, transepts, short chancel and apse. Aisles are not
surprising: they had been built at Greyfriars
earlier in the C17 ... S front of
ashlar, the curving skews of the aisles reaching up to the shaped gable of
the nave. Roman Doric portico ... At the gallery level two
round-arched windows under a circular window. Lavishly carved arms of
William III at the top. Between the windows, the arms of Thomas Moodie
above an inscribed tablet flanked by cherubs' heads, a deeply cut swag of
fruit below. Round-headed windows in the harled flanks. No clearstorey. In
the piend-roofed (Scots for hipped) transepts
the windows repeat the arrangement of the gable. Two lights in the apse
under a flattened dagger, all in a semi-elliptical arch. ... |
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In the church itself,
round-arched nave arcades on Roman Doric columns halted by tall pilastered
piers flanking the larger arches into the transepts. ... The nave ceiling,
a segmental arched vault of 1817, was hidden by acoustic tiles in 1961.
New Danish-built Frobenius pipe
organ installed in 1998.
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The
churchyard was laid out in 1688. No shortage of monuments. ...
Separate pages on the graves of
Adam Smith
and Robert
Fergusson On
Calton Hill in the background, the Nelson Monument and the Royal High School |
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On the wall of the west transept:
Alexander and John Runciman, erected by the Royal Scottish Academy, 1866, "in
memory of the two brothers eminent as historical painters". Examples
of their work in the National Galleries of Scotland: Alexander
Runciman, John
Runciman.
Biographies
in Wikipedia.
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John
Irving, a close friend of Sir Walter Scott |
Supposed
grave of David
Riccio (1533-66) |
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Kirk
website
including a very detailed history |
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Old
Pictures of Canongate Church at Edinphoto |
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Map
More
of Edinburgh at Astoft
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