Mansfield Place Church is a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. The Scottish neo-Romanseque building was designed by Sir

Robert Rowand Anderson Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, (5 April 1834 – 1 June 1921) was a Scottish Victorian architecture, Victorian architect. Anderson trained in the office of George Gilbert Scott in London before setting up his own practice in Edinburgh in 1860. ...

and completed in 1885. Now called the Mansfield Traquair Centre, it is located on Mansfield Place at the foot of Broughton Street.

History

Mansfield Place Church was built as a parish of the

Catholic Apostolic Church The Catholic Apostolic Church (CAC), also known as the Irvingian Church or Irvingite Church, is a Christian denomination, denomination in the Restorationist branch of Christianity. It originated in Scotland around 1831 and later spread to Germa ...

. Architect

was commissioned by the Apostles of the church to build a new Edinburgh parish in 1872, after the church's original neoclassical building was outgrown. The building was consecrated in 1876. The absence of aisles in the church were designed to provide parishioners with an unobstructed view of the Catholic Apostolic Church's elaborate

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

. The church's interior was decorated (1893–1901) by

Phoebe Anna Traquair Phoebe Anna Traquair (; 24 May 1852 – 4 August 1936) was an Irish-born artist, who achieved international recognition for her role in the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland, as an illustrator, painter and embroiderer. Her works included larg ...

. This work, her best-known, has been called "Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel". It is a

Category A Listed Building Category, plural categories, may refer to: General uses *Classification, the general act of allocating things to classes/categories Philosophy * Category of being * ''Categories'' (Aristotle) * Category (Kant) * Categories (Peirce) *Category (V ...

. Following the death of the parish's last Catholic Apostolic priest in 1958, the Catholic Apostolic history of the building ended. From 1974 to 1988, it was owned by the Reformed Baptist Church, and it was later sold to the Edinburgh Brick Company. Under the ownership of the Brick Company, the building was essentially derelict, and its interior murals decayed. Friends of Mansfield Place Church was founded in 1992, and the Mansfield Traquair Trust was founded one year later, in to advocate for the restoration of the building. In 1996, the church received a £2.8 million Heritage Lottery Fund award grant, and in 1997, the

Edinburgh Council The City of Edinburgh Council (Scottish Gaelic: ''Comhairle Baile Dhùn Èideann'') is the Local government in Scotland, local government authority covering the City of Edinburgh council area. Almost half of the council area is the built-up are ...

served a

compulsory purchase order A compulsory purchase order (CPO; , ) is a legal function in the United Kingdom and Ireland that allows certain bodies to obtain land or property without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for ...

on the Edinburgh Brick Company. The Traquair Trust purchased the building in 1998, and initial restoration was done from 2000 to 2002, while the Traquair murals were restored from 2003 to 2005. Currently, the sanctuary of the Church is used as a multi-purpose events venue, while the rest of the building was converted into a headquarters for the

Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is the national membership body for Scotland’s voluntary organisations. SCVO's mission is to champion the role of voluntary organisations in building a flourishing society and support them ...

, which moved in in 2003 and leases space from the Mansfield Traquair Trust. Guided tours are regularly conducted in the sanctuary.

References

{{reflist Churches in Edinburgh Former churches in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh