300th Anniversary of our Congregation – Monday 18th August 2008
On the 18th August 1708, George Haliburton, Bishop of Aberdeen, licensed Robert Blair to be the first Episcopalian priest of a new congregation which began its life meeting in a room in Half Moon Close on the Castle Hill in Edinburgh. This new congregation was founded by John Smith, a barrister, who came to Scotland following the Union of the Parliaments in 1707, to serve as Lord Chief Baron of Scotland. Rent for the new meeting house amounted to £6 per year.
As the congregation grew, John Smith looked to build a permanent place of worship, and in 1722 the New Chapel was opened near the foot of Blackfriars Wynd (now Street) in the Cowgate. In 1745, after further expansion, the congregation bought the adjoining building in order to enlarge the chapel.
In 1774, the congregation moved to their newly-built church at the east end of the Cowgate (now St Patrick’s RC). Soon after, however, many of its well-to-do congregation began to move out of the Old Town into the townhouses of the emerging New Town, and it became necessary for the congregation to relocate once again. Another church was built, our present building, to which Walter Scott contributed 30 guineas. The new church, St Paul’s Chapel, was consecrated on the 30th January 1818.
In January 2006, the congregation moved out of the present building to make way for extensive reordering of the interior of the church, and the building of balconies, a new church hall, and a large foyer. In August 2008, exactly 300 years after this congregation began, we will take possession once more of a church facility that is fit for worship and witness in the 21st century.