‘Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel’

The building is the work of Robert Rowand Anderson, one of the greatest architects of the Victorian era, who was commissioned in 1872 by the ‘apostles’ or governors of the Catholic Apostolic Church, to erect a new building suitable for their form of worship. The building, in a neo-Romanesque style, was completed by 1885. The vast barrel-vaulted nave has no aisles, allowing the congregation an uninterrupted view of the elaborate and colourful ritual of the Catholic Apostolic services. 

However, what really makes it unique is the spectacular mural decoration which enriches every part of the interior. Painted between 1893 and 1901 by Edinburgh’s leading Arts & Crafts artist Phoebe Anna Traquair, it was designed to enhance a worshipper’s experience. The building is filled with narrative scenes from both the Old and New Testaments including the Parable of the Ten Virgins. The Great West Wall, more than twenty metres in height, illustrates the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time, a core belief of the Church.

Inspired by both the Italian Renaissance and recent Pre-Raphaelite art, Traquair adapted her style and materials to each space. Gold leaf over gesso plaster was used for angels’ trumpets, haloes and the glorious decorative borders which complete many panels. As an art critic writing in the late 1890s noted, it ‘scintillates and glows like a jewelled crown’.