The Reid Memorial Church is a church in

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 ...

. It is a congregation of the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland (CoS; ; ) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While mem ...

(in the

Presbytery of Edinburgh The Presbytery of Edinburgh was one of the Presbyterian polity, presbyteries of the Church of Scotland, being the local presbytery for Edinburgh.Church of Scotland Yearbook, 2010-2011 edition, Its boundary was almost identical to that of the City ...

) and is located in the

Blackford Blackford might refer to: People with the surname * Charles Minor Blackford (1833–1903), American lawyer *Hosea Blackford, a fictional character in books by Harry Turtledove *Ian Blackford (born 1961), Scottish politician *Inger Mewburn (Inger B ...

area on the south side of the city.

History

After growing resentment within the

about the appointment of ministers by the patron of a church, the

Disruption of 1843 The Disruption of 1843, also known as the Great Disruption, was a schism in 1843 in which 450 evangelical ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. The main conflict was over whether the Church of Sc ...

led to the

Free Church of Scotland In contemporary usage, the Free Church of Scotland usually refers to: * Free Church of Scotland (since 1900), that portion of the original Free Church which remained outside the 1900 merger; extant It may also refer to: * Free Church of Scotland (1 ...

. Among the ministers seceding was Dr. Robert Gordon, formerly of St Giles', and he became the first minister of the "Free High" congregation. After he died in 1853, he was succeeded by

Robert Rainy Robert Rainy (1 January 1826 – 22 December 1906), was a Scottish Presbyterian divine. Rainy Hall in New College, Edinburgh (the Divinity faculty at Edinburgh University) is named after him. Life He was born on New Year's Day 1826 at 28 Mon ...

, who was minister until 1862, and then followed by other eminent preachers and scholars. The

United Free Church of Scotland The United Free Church of Scotland (UF Church; , ) is a Scottish Presbyterian denomination formed in 1900 by the union of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland (or UP) and the Free Church of Scotland (1843–1900), majority of the 19th-cen ...

was formed in 1900 when the Free Church combined with the United Presbyterian Church, which rejoined the

in 1929. William Reid was a successful Edinburgh businessman during the 19th century, and when he died in 1889 he left his wealth to his four sons. The last son, William Crambe Reid, died without heirs in 1921 after inheriting the wealth of his brothers, and bequeathed his estate to the United Free Church to build a church in memory of his father, but the reunion of the churches had taken place before construction started. There already being an abundance of churches in the south side of Edinburgh, the

moved the congregation of the Free High Church attached to the New College at the top of

The Mound The Mound is an artificial slope and road in central Edinburgh, Scotland, which connects Edinburgh's New and Old Towns. It was formed by dumping around 1,501,000 cartloads of earth excavated from the foundations of the New Town into Nor Loc ...

into the new building, as their building was to be used for the expansion of the activities of the College. It was dedicated on 3 January 1935, and the first Sunday service, on 6 January, was officiated by Rev. J Marshall Robertson. On 11 June 2019 the Rev. Alex McAspurren was inducted as minister of both Craigmillar Park Church and Reid Memorial Church, the two churches having been linked by the Presbytery of Edinburgh the previous year.

Details

The church was designed by Leslie Grahame Thomson and built between 1929 and 1933. It is in an

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

style, replicating mediaeval churches with cathedral-like proportions and layout. It consists of a

cruciform A cruciform is a physical manifestation resembling a common cross or Christian cross. These include architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described as having a cruciform ...

with side aisles and a square tower to the south-east. To the east of this main section is a

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

court, around which are arranged

vestries A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spent nearly one-fi ...

, the session house, a hall and the church officer's house. The windows along the side are decorated with

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support th ...

and there are flanking buttresses that travel above the height of the windows. The three windows of the chancery are decorated with

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

by James Ballantine, depicting the Nativity, Crucifixion and Ascension. The Church is located in a triangular area between West Savile Terrace to the north, and Blackford Avenue to the south, a steep hill that rises above it. It was protected as a category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

on 12 December 1974.

Organ

The

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

was built by

Rushworth and Dreaper Rushworth and Dreaper was a firm of organ builders, and later general instrument suppliers associated with Paul McCartney, based in Liverpool. The manufacturer was founded in 1828 by William Rushworth (organ builder), William Rushworth. In th ...

References

External links

{{Religious sites in Edinburgh Church of Scotland churches in Edinburgh Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh Churches completed in 1935 20th-century Church of Scotland church buildings Listed churches in Edinburgh