North Leith Parish Church

North Leith Parish Church stands in Madeira Street, Leith, a former independent burgh now part of Edinburgh. The present building, completed in 1816, was designed by William Burn in a grand neo-classical style. Its portico has four large Ionic columns supporting a clock tower topped by a slender spire. Inside, a pipe organ by Wadsworth of Manchester was installed in 1880. The church once seated 1,300 people and is now a category A listed building. It survived wartime bombing in 1941 and was restored by 1950. The church’s origins go back to 1128 when King David I granted land for Holyrood Abbey. In 1493, St Ninian’s Chapel was built on the Water of Leith by Abbot Robert Bellenden. After the Reformation, the chapel was rebuilt and became North Leith’s parish church in 1606. A Dutch-style tower was added in 1675, but rot forced a rebuild in 1816. The old tower still stands, now part of a mill. Nearby, the altar tomb of Thomas Gladstones, grandfather of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, marks the old churchyard. The parish once included a manse called Leith Mount, built in 1825 and removed in 1920 for Leith Theatre. The area around the church includes Leith Docks, Ocean Terminal, and the Royal Yacht Britannia. Notable ministers once served here, including John Knox and Andrew Fairfoul, who later became Archbishop of Glasgow. The Coburg Street burial ground holds graves of poet Robert Nicoll and Colonel Anne Mackintosh, a Jacobite leader. The church’s final service took place in March 2024 after 208 years of worship on Madeira Street.