| Mansfield Place Church | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| OS grid reference | NT252735 |
| Location | Edinburgh |
| Country | Scotland |
| History | |
| Founded | 1876 |
| Architecture | |
| Style | Romanesque Revival architecture |
Mansfield Place Church is a church in Edinburgh. The Scottish neo-Romanseque building was designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson and completed in 1885. Now called the Mansfield Traquair Centre, it is located on Mansfield Place at the foot of Broughton Street.
Mansfield Place Church was built as a parish of the Catholic Apostolic Church. Architect Robert Rowand Anderson 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. The church's interior was decorated (1893–1901) by Phoebe Anna Traquair. This work, her best-known, has been called "Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel". [1] It is a Grade A Listed Building. [2]
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 served a compulsory purchase order 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. [3]
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, which moved in in 2003 and leases space from the Mansfield Traquair Trust. Guided tours are regularly conducted in the sanctuary. [4]
The Catholic Apostolic Church (CAC), also known as the Irvingian Church or Irvingite Church, is a denomination in the Restorationist branch of Christianity. It originated in Scotland around 1831 and later spread to Germany and the United States. The tradition to which the Catholic Apostolic Church belongs is sometimes referred to as Irvingism or the Irvingian movement after Edward Irving (1792–1834), a clergyman of the Church of Scotland credited with organising the movement.
Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, was a Scottish Victorian architect. Anderson trained in the office of George Gilbert Scott in London before setting up his own practice in Edinburgh in 1860. During the 1860s his main work was small churches in the 'First Pointed' style that is characteristic of Scott's former assistants. By 1880 his practice was designing some of the most prestigious public and private buildings in Scotland.
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Sir Robert Stodart Lorimer, KBE was a prolific Scottish architect and furniture designer noted for his sensitive restorations of historic houses and castles, for new work in Scots Baronial and Gothic Revival styles, and for promotion of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Sir William Hardie Kininmonth was a Scottish architect whose work mixed a modern style with Scottish vernacular.
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Broughton is an ancient feudal barony, today an area of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Phoebe Anna Traquair 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 large-scale murals, embroidery, enamel jewellery and book illuminations. In 1920, she was elected as an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy.
Ramsay Heatley Traquair FRSE FRS was a Scottish naturalist and palaeontologist who became a leading expert on fossil fish.
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Ramsay Traquair was a Scottish architect and academic with strong links to Canada. He is remembered more for his numerous publications than for his buildings, which are limited in number. He was a particular expert on Early Canadian and French-Canadian architecture.
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John Miller Gray (1850-1894) was a Scottish art critic and the first curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
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George Mackie Watson RIBA (1860–1948) was a Scottish architect in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He trained in the offices of Robert Rowand Anderson, and was responsible for the design and reconstruction of several churches. From 1912 to 1932 he was involved in the total rebuilding of Eilean Donan Castle on the west coast of Scotland, for John Macrae-Gilstrap.
The Mortuary Chapel of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh is a late nineteenth-century chapel, designed by the Scottish architect George Washington Browne, with mural decorations by the Arts and Crafts artist Phoebe Anna Traquair. The chapel is designated as a "Category A" listed building by Historic Scotland. The murals are Phoebe Traquair's first professional commission, and the sole survivor of around 20 commissions instigated by Patrick Geddes' Edinburgh Social Union. They were described in 1887 as "the most important and memorable portion of the art of the Social Union" and in an August 1891 letter to her nephew, Traquair says "I myself believe that in some ways I shall never do better or maybe as well."
Bellevue is a district of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It lies to the south east of Canonmills, west of Leith Walk and south of Leith, incorporating the easternmost extent of Edinburgh's New Town UNESCO heritage site. The area was formerly open fields which became the second and penultimate location of the Royal Botanic Garden in 1763 .