The Glasite Meeting House

Born in Fife in 1695, John Glas was ordained in 1719 as minister for the parish of Tealing, near Dundee. His beliefs about how Christianity should be practiced developed to the point that he was expelled from the Church of Scotland in 1730. Henceforth, those who followed his teachings in Scotland were called Glasites; his ideas spread to England and the US through the auspices of his son-in-law Robert Sandman, with believers in these countries consequently being known as Sandemanians.

Glas’s beliefs centred on directly following the teachings of Christ as outlined in the Bible’s New Testament. In practical terms this meant no clergy, no consecrated churches and lengthy readings from the Scriptures every Sunday, interrupted with a large meal in imitation of the Last Supper, known as the “love feast”. The feast always began with a course of kale soup, earning the Glasites the nickname ‘Kail Kirk’.

The Glasites’ Edinburgh meeting house was originally in Chalmer’s Close, off the Royal Mile, but in 1835 they purchased a new plot in Barony Street and commissioned Alexander Black to design the building. Black mainly worked for the George Heriot Trust, from whom the Glasites bought the Barony Street land. The Meeting House is thought to be Black’s earliest architectural commission and is quite different from his other surviving work. Much of the design was influenced by the specific needs of the congregation, such as the large meeting hall (top-lit for privacy), a separate feasting room (with opaque glazed windows), a kitchen and additional living space for the housekeeper and visiting preachers.

The building was completed in December 1835, and has remained essentially the same since. It received a new pulpit in 1873, designed by the notable architect David Bryce and two additional circular windows, inserted into the meeting hall in 1890.

The building’s use as an art gallery was eminently suitable in allowing regular public access and making the most of the meeting hall’s expansive, top-lit space. Helen Lucas Architects were responsible for designing the necessary alterations. These were mostly limited to the meeting hall, which was cleared and levelled through the insertion of a new floor structure on top of the original raked floorboards. Subtle plasterboard partition walls were installed on all four sides of the room, facilitating the regular display of a variety of artwork and creating hidden storage areas where the architecturally significant pulpit and a selection of pews could be kept.

With the help of funding from the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust, SHBT also took the opportunity to undertake further external stone and roof repairs and to open up the previously blind windows to the rear of the Meeting House.