Holyrood Free Church And School, Horse Wynd, Edinburgh is a Grade B listed building in the City of Edinburgh local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 14 December 1970. Gatehouse.

Holyrood Free Church And School, Horse Wynd, Edinburgh

WRENN ID
proud-oriel-umber
Grade
B
Local Planning Authority
City of Edinburgh
Constituency
Edinburgh East and Musselburgh MP: Chris Murray (Lab)
Country
Scotland
Date first listed
14 December 1970
Type
Gatehouse
OS grid reference
NT 267 739
Coordinates
55.95262, -3.17382
Source
Historic Environment Scotland listing

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

Description

Holyrood Free Church and School, located on Horse Wynd in Edinburgh, was designed by Robert Matheson in 1861. This impressive building features a monumental, double-height, symmetrical gatehouse in the Scots Renaissance style, characterized by corbelled and crowstepped elements. The gatehouse includes a depressed gothic arch entrance and is flanked by projecting battlemented round towers to the east, each topped with conical roofs that have finials. A central dormer with a finial and pediment breaks the eaves.

To the right and left of the gatehouse are single-storey wings, with the right wing incorporating a 17th-century former garden entrance that boasts a moulded architrave, a decorative carved frieze, and a broken pediment topped with a thistle. The building is constructed of squared and snecked sandstone, with rubble on the west side and a base course. The towers feature panels adorned with carved coats of arms, and there are crowstepped gable dormerheads on the west side.

The wings are designed with tripartite windows that have stone mullions, alongside some cross-slit openings, and a parapet on the west side. The gatehouse is fitted with 12-pane timber sash and case windows, while the single-storey wings have single-pane timber sash and case windows, all featuring horns. The roof is covered with grey slates, and the building includes skews and moulded skewputts, as well as coped gable stacks.

The interior was comprehensively modernized as of 2007.

Local climate

Holyrood Free Church And School, Horse Wynd, 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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