Landmark Edinburgh church with links to Robert Louis Stevenson up for sale
Greenside Parish Church in Royal Terrace has been put on the market by the Church of Scotland
An Edinburgh city-centre church with links to Robert Louis Stevenson is up for sale with a price tag of more than £1 million.
Greenside Parish Church in Royal Terrace has been put on the market by the Church of Scotland, along with the neighbouring caretaker's cottage, after the congregation merged with another.
The church building, which dates back to 1838, and the cottage are being advertised together at offers over £1,075,000.
Both properties are A-listed. The sale brochure says they could be used - without the need for planning permission - as a crèche, day nursery, day centre, educational establishment, museum, art gallery or public library.
It says the church also has potential for use as a theatre, cinema or entertainment venue, retail space or community resource, subject to obtaining appropriate consents. And it adds that conversion to residential accommodation would also be possible, subject to the usual consents.
The church comprises an entrance vestibule, a small vestry and a main worship space at ground floor level, with a mezzanine gallery seating area above. The lower ground floor has two halls, office space, storage rooms, kitchen and toilets.
The cottage has, on the ground floor, a hall, living room with kitchen off, bedroom and bathroom with WC. And there are two bedrooms on the first floor.
The congregation of Greenside united with St Andrew’s and St George’s West in George Street in February 2024 to form the New Town Church, based in the George Street building.
But the site has a long religious history, with a “rude chapel” built on the north slope of Calton Hill in 1456 and a Carmelite monastery grown around it by 1526. The monastery was dissolved during the Scottish Reformation, and in 1591 the chapel became a hospital for lepers.
The current building was the last of the “burgh churches”, which were built by the city for the expanding population of the New Town.
Treasure Island author Louis Stevenson is said to have attended the church as a child. His father and grandfather were both elders at Greenside.
But the last full-time minister left in 2011 and the church continued with interim ministers until the merger in 2024, part of a major shake up carried out by the Church of Scotland across the country in response to a shortage of ministers and dwindling congregations.
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