Religious architecture
St Mary’s Chapel
- View of St Mary’s Chapel
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St Mary’s Chapel was used by Lady Glenorchy for Evangelical services.
It was also used by the Edinburgh Musical Society for their first concerts.
Old Greyfriars’ Church
- Greyfriars’ Church
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- Greyfriars’ Church
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- Greyfriars’ Church
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St Andrew’s Church in Edinburgh
- St Andrew’s Church
- Exterior view
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- St Andrew’s Church
- Exterior view
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- St Andrew’s Church
- Interior view
Elevation and plan from The Scot’s Magazine 43 (1781) 119.
The church has an elliptical plan.
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- St Andrew’s Church
- Interior view
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Wesley’s octagon Chapel in Edinburgh (Methodists)
- Wesley’s octagon Chapel
- (Edinburgh Dean of Guild Records)
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The first Methodist chapel in Edinburgh was constructed in 1765-6, based on an octagonal plan dear to Wesley, on a plot of land rented for a fixed annual rent of £8.14.0. The lease specifies that it is a ’preaching house’ where Methodists appointed either by Wesley or by the annual Methodist conference, could ’celebrate the Divine service ’ ’ every evening of the week and every morning at five o’clock ’.
It was built according to John Wesley’s instructions.
The Methodists also preached in the open air in Edinburgh.
- Wesley’s octagon Chapel
- (Edinburgh Dean of Guild Records)
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John Wesley is reported to have thus stated his preference for the octagon at the 1770 methodist conference:
“Build all Preaching houses if the ground will permit on the Octagon form. It is best for the voice and on many accounts more commodious than any other.”
quoted in Alan J. Hayes, Edinburgh Methodism 1761-1975: The Mother Churches (Edinburgh: for the author, 1976) 11.
- Wesley’s octagon Chapel
- (Edinburgh Dean of Guild Records)
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Indeed, the location of the pulpit in the adjoining plan is worth noticing as best reverberating the voice without an echo.
However, the ellipse is an even better acoustic form, as the designers of the interior plan of St. Andrew’s and St Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh or the ceiling in St.-Martin-in-the-Fields in London must have known.
