Church Of The Sacred Heart, 26 Lauriston Street, Edinburgh

The Church of the Sacred Heart, located at 26 Lauriston Street in Edinburgh, was designed by Father Richard Vaughan in 1860, with some later alterations. It features a broad, classical facade with a pediment and three bays, set back from the street. The building is constructed from polished cream sandstone ashlar and includes a base course, cornices between the ground and upper levels, and below the pediment. The openings for doors and windows are round-arched and adorned with key- and impost-blocks. The entrance is located in the advanced center bay and consists of a two-leaf timber storm door, which is glazed, and a two-leaf timber inner door with a fanlight above. This entrance is flanked by Roman Doric columns and topped with a broken segmental pediment that contains a shield with a gilded sunburst and the letters IHS above a ribbon inscribed 'AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM'. The outer portions of the bay are channelled at ground level and feature tall, narrow, round-headed windows in unmoulded openings, with the lower parts blocked. Above the entrance, there is a large round-arched window flanked by coupled Doric pilasters. The outer bays have two-leaf timber-panelled doors with fanlights above and round-arched windows above them, with channelled pilaster strips at the outer edges of the bays at ground level and Doric pilasters above. The outermost portions of the bays are finished in polished ashlar.

Inside, there is a glazed screen with small leaded panes and stained glass, along with double doors between the vestibule and the church. Above the doors are coloured panels, and there is an arched entrance to a small frescoed space on the left. The nave is a simple rectangular shape with a wagon-vaulted ceiling, lined with Ionic pilasters that feature plaster swags in the entablature and illuminated by four domed lanterns. Gilt-framed painted roundels are placed between alternate ribs in the roof. The nave also contains 14 large paintings on canvas positioned between the pilasters. The apsidal chancel, designed by Archibald Macpherson in 1884, includes flanking chapels that may have been created by S Henbest Capper in 1895. A rear gallery with an organ is situated above the glazed screen at the back of the church.

The boundary wall features coursed stone with a coped top and is complemented by spear-headed cast-iron railings. The gatepiers are pyramidally capped ashlar, and there are cast-iron gates.