Trinity Church – Medieval Edinburgh

Trinity College Church is overlooked by most, including people who know Edinburgh well, but it is all that survives of a stunning 15th-century church founded by Queen Mary of Guelders. This talk will explore the complicated history of Trinity, and consider what the church can tell us about devotion and culture in pre-Reformation Scotland.

Lizzie Swarbrick is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Art History at the University of Edinburgh. She is currently working on a complete reappraisal of that most infamous of Scottish buildings: Rosslyn Chapel. More generally, her work illuminates the multi-media experience of Scottish pre-Reformation churches by looking at their architecture, sculpture, tombs, furnishings, textiles, ornaments, and artworks.

Jill Harrison will also introduce the Trinity Network’s project, Reviving the Trinity Stones, which the Old Edinburgh Club is supporting through the Jean Guild Grants programme.

The project seeks to record what became of the original stones of the church which went missing after its dismantling to make way for the construction of the Waverley Station and its rebuilding between Jeffrey Steet and the High Street.