West St Giles' Parish Church

About

West St Giles' Parish Church was a parish church of the Church of Scotland and a burgh church of Edinburgh, Scotland. Occupying the Haddo's Hole division of St Giles' from 1699, the church was then based in Marchmont between 1883 and its closure in 1972. The congregation's origins are in a meeting-house on Castlehill, founded after the 1687 Declaration of Indulgence.

Following the re-establishment of Presbyterianism in the Church of Scotland, the congregation occupied the north-western division of St Giles'. This was known as Haddo's Hole (or Hold) in reference to John Gordon of Haddo: a leading royalist, who was imprisoned there before his execution in 1644. When William Burn launched a major project of alterations at St Giles' in 1829, the congregation (by then also known as the New North Kirk) vacated the building, returning in 1843.

With the restoration of St Giles' under William Chambers, West St Giles' departed its historic home, occupying a new church in Marchmont from 1883. In 1972, the congregation united with Grange Parish Church on Kilgraston Road in the Grange and Warrender Parish Church on Whitehouse Loan in Bruntsfield to form Marchmont St Giles' Parish Church. Until a...