Trinity College Kirk

Trinity College Kirk c. 1647
Engraved colour drawing of the church, done in 1825
Watercolour from the early 1840s depicting the church from the north side
1848 calotype by Hill & Adamson, shortly before its destruction
Plan of Trinity College Church 1814
New Trinity College Church on Jeffrey Street (with reconstruction of the choir and apse to the rear) in 1895
Trinity College Kirk on Jeffrey Street showing the new church to front with reconstructed "Apse" to rear - new church demolished 1960s for office development - now a hotel.
North Aisle
The Trinity Altarpiece (ca. 1478 – 1479) by Hugo van der Goes, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Trinity College Kirk was a royal collegiate church in Edinburgh, Scotland. The kirk and its adjacent almshouse, Trinity Hospital, were founded in 1460 by Mary of Gueldres in memory of her husband, King James II who had been killed at the siege of Roxburgh Castle that year.[1][2] Queen Mary was interred in the church, until her coffin was moved to Holyrood Abbey in 1848.[3]

The original church design was never completed. Only the apse, choir (with aisles) and transepts were completed.[4]

The church was located in the valley between the Old Town and Calton Hill, but was systematically dismantled in 1848 due to the construction of Waverley Station on its site. Although its stones were numbered in anticipation of rebuilding and were stored in a yard on Calton Hill, by 1872, when a replacement church was built on the newly formed Jeffrey Street, only a third were left which were used to construct a version of the choir and apse which was the hall of the new church.

  1. ^ Rachel M. Delman, 'Mary of Guelders and the Architecture of Queenship in Fifteenth-Century Scotland', Scottish Historical Review, 102:2 (2023), pp. 211–231. doi:10.3366/shr.2023.0611
  2. ^ Duncan Macmillan, Scottish Art, 1460–1990 (Mainstream, 1990), p. 18.
  3. ^ "Notes on the disputed tomb of Mary of Gueldres" (PDF).
  4. ^ "Edinburgh, Leith Wynd, Trinity College Church And Hospital". Canmore. Historic Environment Scotland. Retrieved 10 May 2020.