ARCHITECTURE
Church of St Patrick, Edinburgh Paul Waddington looks at a church that may become the first Oratory of St Philip Neri in Scotland
A
nyone who has visited the Edinburgh Festival, or more likely the Edinburgh Fringe, will be familiar with Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, the cobbled street in Edinburgh’s Old Town that extends from Holyrood Palace to Edinburgh Castle. During Festival time, the Royal Mile, along with Grassmarket Square and Cowgate, the street running parallel to the Royal Mile, host thousands of shows put on by would-be performers hoping to make their way in the world of entertainment. Right in the centre of all this festive activity, but serenely insulated from it, lies the Church of St Patrick. Although its exact location is in South Gray’s Close, a tiny back street between Cowgate and the Royal Mile, the southern facade is clearly visible from Cowgate. Originally known as the Cowgate Chapel, it was built between 1772 and 1774 for the Scottish Episcopal Church. Although described as a chapel, it was in fact quite a large and well-appointed church. Following the completion in 1818 of the much grander and better located Church of St John the Evangelist in Princes Street, the Episcopalians sold the Cowgate Chapel to a group of Presbyterians who had broken away from their Church of Scotland congregation. This group applied for and was granted admission to the Scottish Relief Church, itself a breakaway faction of the Church of Scotland. It seems that the group based at the Cowgate Chapel had difficulty sustaining itself, and in 1828 merged with another congregation of the Scottish Relief Church based in Infirmary Street. In 1847, the Scottish Relief Church merged with the Scottish Succession Church to form the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, but this merger was insufficient to save the Cowgate congregation, which continued to suffer financial difficulties and was eventually forced to sell its chapel in 1856.
30
Little Ireland By this time, a large number of Irish immigrants had settled in the area around Cowgate, a part of Edinburgh which became known as Little Ireland. To this day, some of the street signs in the area retain the words, Little Ireland, beneath the name of the street. Bishop Gillis, the Vicar Apostolic for the Eastern District of Scotland, was keen to provide a church for this impoverished community, and was able to buy the Cowgate Chapel for £4,000. Half the cost was raised almost immediately by the Irish community. The new Catholic Church was dedicated to St Patrick and was opened on 3 August 1856 with a Mass presided over by Bishop Gillis with an estimated 2,600 in the congregation. The original chapel was designed by John Baxter for the Scottish Episcopal Church. It was built in a Georgian
Style using a honey-coloured stone. The building was approximately square, with gable ends to the north and south. There were two tiers of large windows, the upper tier having rounded heads. On the eastern side was a broad but shallow apse to accommodate the altar. At the southern end, rising from the apex of the roof, Baxter provided a square tower which supported an elegant octagonal bell chamber. This was capped by a dome and topped off with a fleche. The Episcopal chapel was approached from South Gray’s Close, which is on its western side, where there was a central door. Later a porch featuring a Norman arch was provided. Inside, the chapel was a single open space, with no pillars to obstruct the view of the altar. The apse had colourful stained-glass windows, and four murals (two rectangular and two oval) adorned the walls. These depicted Christ addressing the women of Samaria,
WINTER 2023
