St Vincent's Episcopal Church, 13 St Vincent Street, Edinburgh

St Vincent's Episcopal Church, built in 1857, is an example of English Gothic architecture designed by J, W. H. and J. M. Hay. It is located at 13 St Vincent Street, Edinburgh and is of group value. The church consists of a five-bay nave facing south, and a four-bay aisle to the north. The exterior walls are constructed of stugged, squared, and snecked rubble, with polished ashlar dressings and details. These include a base course, staggered cill course, eaves course, and long and short quoins around windows and corners. The windows feature curvilinear tracery.

The north elevation’s entrance porch is buttressed and gabled and sits to the right of centre. It has a pointed-arch door with a roll-moulded head and colonnette jambs. The door is a two-leaf vertically boarded timber door with iron hinges and foliate decoration. Two bays to the outer right are slightly advanced, with a square towerlet in the penultimate bay, containing a lancet window facing north and topped with a tall pyramidal stone roof and an iron cross finial. A vertically boarded timber door sits in a recessed pointed arch doorpiece to the outer right. Bipartite windows are located in bays to the left of the porch, within recessed two-centred arches. Decorative floriate iron hinges are a feature. A basement area is situated to the left of the entrance porch, slightly advanced, with two-leaf vertically boarded timber doors in a segmental arched recessed doorpiece to the right, and filled doorpieces at the centre and left, which possibly cover vaulted areas supporting a stone floor.

The east elevation features a chancel gable, slightly lower than the nave gable, with the aisle gable recessed to the outer right. A canted vestry is set across the re-entrant angle between the chancel and aisle and is corniced with a blocking course. Three traceried lights are centred on the east elevation, and a vertically boarded timber door with decorative iron hinges is on the north elevation.

The south elevation is five bays wide, comprising three bipartite pointed arched windows at the centre. A tripartite pointed arched window breaks the eaves of the gable, attached to a rendered and coped stack featuring a circular can. A recessed south elevation of the chancel is on the outer right, with a single bipartite pointed arched window at the centre.

The west elevation is obscured by an adjoining terrace.

Inside, the church has circular piers supporting the arcade between the nave and aisle, and a scissor-braced roof. The organ, originally by William Townsend in 1872, was rebuilt by Blackett and Howden in 1897. A variety of traceried curvilinear stained glass windows are present, including late 19th-century lights in the east window, and a heraldic display by A. Carrick Whalen from 1975. The roof is covered with grey slate, alternating bands with fish-scale slates, and predominantly features cross finials on the gables. Cast-iron rainwater goods are in place. Ashlar skew copes have gabletted skewputts. The railings and gatepiers are constructed of ashlar copes surmounted by cast-iron railings with foliate cross finials. The stone gatepiers are chamfered square with shallow pyramidal caps.