Schoolroom Pavilion, St John's East Church, Constitution Street, Leith, Edinburgh is a Grade C listed building in the City of Edinburgh local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 29 April 1977. 9 related planning applications.

Schoolroom Pavilion, St John's East Church, Constitution Street, Leith, Edinburgh

WRENN ID
guardian-rampart-myrtle
Grade
C
Local Planning Authority
City of Edinburgh
Constituency
Edinburgh North and Leith MP: Tracy Gilbert (Lab)
Country
Scotland
Date first listed
29 April 1977
OS grid reference
NT 272 762
Coordinates
55.97405, -3.16734
Source
Historic Environment Scotland listing

Also on this page: related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

St John's East Church, located on Constitution Street in Leith, Edinburgh, was built in 1773 and later remodelled and re-fronted by David Rhind in 1843. This rectangular-plan preaching-box features a later Gothic refacing, a west tower, and a single-storey wing to the north. The church is constructed of cream sandstone with a polished ashlar front and tower, while the rear and sides are made of coursed rubble with ashlar quoins. It has a cavetto eaves cornice, a front base course, and principal openings adorned with 4-centred arches, ashlar mullions, and hoodmoulds with angled label stops. The structure also includes angle buttresses topped with octagonal pinnacles, gabletted faces, and elongated ogee heads.

The west elevation features a three-stage lantern tower at the centre, with a pointed-arch doorway and a row of blind quatrefoils above. The second stage has two tall bipartite windows on the south, west, and north faces, while the top stage has a broached base of the spire with corner pinnacles and clock faces (without faces) framed by corbelled shafts. The tall octagonal belfry has lancet windows and octagonal corbelled shafts that break the eaves, leading to a pierced arcaded parapet. Y-traceried windows flank the tower.

The east elevation is gabled and has two tall windows flanking a blocked oculus and a square blank ashlar cartouche, along with a keystoned bull's-eye window in the gablehead. The original round-arched and keystoned openings, which are blocked, include a doorway flanked by two windows, and a tall window in the gablehead is flanked by smaller windows.

Both the north and south elevations feature three tall arched openings and large Velux rooflights.

The side wing is constructed of stugged ashlar and is a single-storey rectangular-plan structure. It has rectangular openings with chamfered reveals and ashlar mullions, along with pinnacled buttresses. The west elevation has four bays, with a doorway to the left of centre, a four-light canted window with a parapet rising to a finialled gable above to the right of centre, and single windows in the outer bays. The south return has a single window and a stepped parapet.

The church has replacement windows throughout and a slate roof with lead flashings, as well as triangular ashlar skews. The interior has been gutted with three storeys inserted. The front features a low rubble wall, cast-iron railings, two square coped gatepiers, and the base of an octagonal gatepier.

Local climate

Schoolroom Pavilion, St John's East Church, Constitution Street, Leith, Edinburgh sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 970 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 76% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 53% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 43 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 81% of listed buildings. Of these, 25 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • No EPC on record for this property
  • No sale records on file
  • Related listed building consents — 9 applications
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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