Churches of Edinburgh - The Canongate Kirk
Not technically an Edinburgh church at all, perhaps - given that Canongate lay outside the city walls and was a separate town until 1856 - but the Canongate Kirk is a rather attractive and culturally significant church on the Royal Mile, best known for its connections to the British royal family.
The church is still formally associated with both the Palace of Holyroodhouse and Edinburgh Castle, as well as remaining actively used as a community house of worship for local people.
The building itself - with its distinctive Dutch-style gable - was designed by the architect James Smith, who was a significant figure in seventeenth-century architecture. Smith also designed Cockenzie House, just outside of Edinburgh, as well as the mausoleum of George 'Bluidy' Mackenzie in Edinburgh's Greyfriars Kirkyard, and he was commissioned to create a new centre of worship for the congregation of Canongate in 1688. The church was completed and in active use by 1691.
The congregation had been forced out of their previous space of worship, at the Holyrood abbey, when King Charles II decided he wished to have exclusive use of the abbey space as a Chapel Royal.
The Canongate Kirk was paid for with money left in a bequest nearly forty years previously, by a local nobleman named Thomas Moodie, as indicated on a decorative panel above the portico of the church, which also features Moodie's coat of arms. The word 'mortification' indicates the leaving of monies in a will.
The apex of the front of the church has the emblem of a stag's head with a cross between its antlers - the symbol of the Canongate and Holyrood area, taken from a legend of King David I encountering a stage whilst hunting in 1128, leading to the creation of the original abbey at Holyrood. The antlers on this emblem are taken from a stag on the royal family's Balmoral estate in the Scottish Highlands.
The royal connections extend to both the inside and outside of the church itself. The flowering cherry tree to the left of the gates as you enter the church was planted by Queen Elizabeth II on the first morning of her first official visit to Edinburgh as queen, in 1952. She would often attend services here during her visits to Holyrood Palace, and the pew at the front of the church bears the crown emblem to indicate its use by the royal family.
The marriage of the queen's granddaughter, Zara Phillips, to Mike Tindall took place at the Canongate Kirk in 2011. Since 1937 the church has received a Christmas tree from the Balmoral estate each winter.
The church also had connections with the incorporated trades of Edinburgh, and as a gesture of thanks for their support during its construction the guilds of the city were given the right to nominate Canongate's minister - from 1784 their choice was Robert Walker, the churchman immortalised by Henry Raeburn in the iconic painting known as The Skating Minister.
Into the twentieth century the minister at Canongate was formally lodged across the road in Acheson House, one of the historic properties accessed via Bakehouse Close.
As well as its royal connections, Canongate Kirk is also the parish church associated with Edinburgh Castle, and is the regimental chapel of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Just as the monarch has a royal pew, the parallel space across the aisle is dedicated for military use.
The interior space of the church is cruciform in layout, with a Romanesque basilica style that is not typical of Scottish churches post-Reformation (when most Catholic traditions were roundly rejected in favour of the Protestant presbyterianism). It is also painted with an unusual pale blue paint, and the decor as a whole seems in contrast with most people's expectations of a royal church - the space feels relatively low-key and modestly decorated, without much in the way of grand statuary or stained glass or paintings.
The church had an organ installed in 1874, becoming one of the first organs to be introduced into Church of Scotland premises. The current organ was installed in 1998, and was the 1000th organ to be produced by the Frobenius organ maker in Denmark.
Visitors can access the Canongate Kirk and its graveyard, where the graves of figures such as Adam Smith and Robert Fergusson can be discovered.
The Canongate kirkyard features on my Old Town and Royal Mile fixed-route walking tour, or can be included in a customised tour by arrangement.
