Catholic Apostolic Church, East London Street, Edinburgh

Catholic Apostolic Church, East London Street, Edinburgh

A large Norman church designed by Robert Rowand Anderson and constructed between 1872 and 1885, occupying a prominent site on falling ground. The building is set up to street level on a base containing a hall, library and offices. The church is aisleless with a large gabled narthex and circular baptistery. It features square corner towers to the nave and apse. The exterior is built of squared and snecked rubble with ashlar quoins, blind arcades, pilasters and dressings. A base course, cill course, dentilled and bracketed eaves courses and Lombard friezes run across the elevations. Nook shafts flank the angles of buttresses and corner towers, and blind arcades contain colonnettes throughout.

The western gable and entrance elevation presents a large wheel window with colonnette spokes and a scalloped edge to a quatrefoil at its centre, with a small vesica above and an apex cross finial. Slender square-section corner towers rise above the eaves in two blind arcaded stages, each topped with substantial pyramidal stone finials (the apex crosses are now missing). A large gabled narthex projects at ground level to the centre, featuring gabletted angle buttresses that rise into sturdy polygonal, conically-capped pinnacles with cross finials (the right finial is missing). Paired nook shafts flank a pair of timber doors set in a round-arched and moulded entrance decorated with filigreed lozenge ornament. Above is a five-bay arcade with a larger window to the centre and blind bays to the flanks, topped by a quatrefoil window. The left return has three bays divided by buttresses, each with a tripartite window featuring a central round-arched light and flanking narrow blinded pointed arches. The right return has two bays, with a tripartite window to the left and a chapter house to the right. The central bay on this side is masked by the baptistery. The baptistery forms an eight-bay circular structure with diminutive tripartite windows to each bay, separated by polished ashlar pilasters. It has a conical roof with a leaded apex and metal cross finial, and is linked to the narthex by a passage lit by a single large circular multifoil window.

The south elevation of the nave comprises five bays with pilasters dividing tall paired round-arched clerestorey windows to each bay. A further square-section tower stands at the east corner. The north elevation is similarly detailed but with a two-storey gabled house adjoined at ground level to its outer left.

The chancel has three recessed bays with an apsidal end to the east and round-arched clerestorey windows, some blinded and some glazed. At ground level, a re-entrant angle with the nave to the south is filled by a gabled chapel with large multifoil windows to pilaster-divided bays. A recessed bay to the east is divided from these by a buttress and slender drum finial. Another bay features a four-part blind arcade with cusped corbelled table, turning to a gabled east end where a stepped round-arched window is set. The re-entrant angle with the nave to the north contains a linking stair block at ground level.

The adjoining house is two-storeys, set low on the falling ground to the east of the north elevation. Its principal elevation faces west, featuring bipartite windows with round-arched openings at first-floor level. The east elevation has an arch-supported link to the church, a bipartite window off-centre to the ground, and a small opening in the gablehead. Gablehead stacks face east and west.

Throughout, windows employ small square-pane leaded glazing and stained glass. The roof is graded grey slate with ornamental ridge tiles that differ between the nave and chancel, sawtooth coped skews, and ashlar stacks to the house. Decorative wrought-iron railings with finialled posts surround the gates.

The interior presents an airy aisleless nave with a double-cube plan and timber barrel vault. The narthex has a rib vault. Nook-shafts divide the nave walls and embrasured clerestorey windows, with a wall passage running beside them. Spiral stairs in the corner towers provide access to the passage. A tall chancel arch with small flanking arches to the chapel and organ aisles features stiff leaf capitals. The chancel has an arcaded clerestorey with clustered colonnettes and a continuing wall passage.

The interior is decorated with an outstanding display of figurative murals by Phoebe Anna Traquair, executed between 1893 and 1901. The subjects are Biblical, including the Worship of Heaven, the Wise and Foolish Virgins, and scenes from the Life of Christ. The wheel window was designed by Ballantine and dates to 1885. Additional stained glass depicting New Testament scenes is also present, though the maker is unknown. An organ with a cantilevered Romanesque case occupies the south wall of the nave. A white marble baldacchino, created in 1893-4, stands in the chancel—an arched, vaulted canopy with gabled angle turrets and a spired finial, adorned with figurative sculpture by William Birnie Rhind depicting apostles and prophets.