Historic Environment Scotland tweeted a “Spot the difference?” competition about the Tron Kirk in Edinburgh. It observed the differences in the steeple between an Engraging (pre-1824) and a photograph (post-1824). I have animated these into a transition to better show the change.

The obvious change here is that the squat “Dutch” steeple has been replaced by a much taller stone pinnacle, supported by 4 masonry columns. The reason behind this is the Great Fire of Edinburgh, which started on the day of the original tweet – November 15th – back in 1824. It raged for 5 days, toppling the wooden framed, lead-covered spire of the Tron Kirk in the process. The spire was rebuilt in stone in 1828, but not to its original design.

But there’s another, bigger difference between the original Tron Kirk and the one seen in both of these images. Look below. Can you Spot the difference?

That’s right – the outer bays are different and there is a whole window on the left (east) side. The reason is that the whole church had to be “truncated” in 1785 to allow South Bridge to be driven through on one side (the left, East) and Blair Street (the right, West) on the other. Notice also that at this time the tenements on either side were built right up to the church and abutted it, and wooden booths wound their way around the front. There was not really sentimentality at this time in Scotland about the exteriors of churches being particularly sacred; it was what went on inside that was important.

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Tron is an odd-sounding word to my ear. It sounds a bit Norse to me, but I can assure you it’s good Scots, from the Old French Trone. The name dates back to the public weighing beams, which were known as trons. The Salt or Over Tron stood in the centre of the High Steet near where the Tron Kirk was built.

There were other Trons – the Butter Tron stood at the head of the old West Bow – but the Salt Tron was the principal, and it was where all the merchandise imported into Leith had to be brought to be publicly weighed and taxed. It lent its name to a parish forming the south east of the Old Town and the Southside one of the 4 old parishes of Reformation Edinburgh. The Tron parish was created in 1598 but worshipped at St. Giles, which had been split into 4 separate parish churches internally by stone walls after the Reformation. The congregation had been preached to by John Knox and saw themselves as “representing the spirit” of Knox. Coincidentally, Jenny Geddes – of stool throwing fame – was a market seller at the Tron.

If you’re not familiar with the story, she is reputed to have thrown her stool at the minister, Dean James Hannay, when he attempted to preach from the Book of Common Prayer. In those days, if you were common you stood, or brought your own seat to the church. Geddes reputedly shouted “De’il gie you colic, the wame o’ ye, fause thief; daur ye say Mass in my lug?” at the minister. The riot was probably more organised and pre-meditated than the popular tale suggests. Nevertheless, Charles I’s attempt to introduce Anglican service into the Scottish Kirk was a disastrous failure that precipitated a war with Scotland that he lost.

When Charles I raised Edinburgh from a burgh to a city in (I think) 1638, he also raised St. Giles to Cathedral status as part of his program of Anglicising the Scottish Kirk. As such this displaced the Tron congregation and and a new church was ordered to be built for them. It took 10 years to build in total, by which time the Scots army had handed Charles over to the English parliament. It was ready to be dedicated in 1641 as “Christ’s Kirk at the Tron”, by which time the majority in Scotland was firmly Presbyterian. I think this would make the Tron the first purpose-built Presbyterian kirk in Scotland?

The Town Council of Edinburgh was obliged (reluctantly) to build and pay for the church by Charles I who threatened to withhold tax duties from the city if they didn’t comply. It was built by the King’s master mason, John Mylne, and his brother Alexander. It is for this reason that over the door of the Tron is the crest of the City of Edinburgh (a 3-towered castle supported by a deer and a maiden) plus the engraving (in Latin) “This building the citizens of Edinburgh to Christ and his Church, in the year 1641“

An engraving of the original Tron. This picture shows the Church to be symettrical in elevation, but maps and prints show that the right (west) side always had a truncated 2nd bay with no window.

The Tron was an important church and was preferred by the upper classes of Old Town Edinburgh over St. Giles.

This thread was started by the observation that the Tron originally had a Dutch-style steeple. They were common in these parts; South Leith had one.

North Leith had one.

And Holyrood Abbey church had one too, when it was used as the parish church for the Canongate after the Reformation and before a purpose-built Kirk was constructed.

Then along came classical-obsessed Georgians and even Gothic-obsessed Victorians and the appearance of Edinburgh churches took something of a different direction. It was these architects who gave the truncated Tron Kirk it’s enormous spire when it was rebuilt. No apologies offered but I really find Victorian church architecture hugely boring.

As a parish kirk, the Tron was deconsecrated as early as 1952 due to rapid depopulation of Old Town Edinburgh and declining post-war Church attendance rates. The City bought it back, but has struggled to find a use for it ever since. Various craft markets, tat stalls and pop-up bars have come and gone and for extended periods it has been locked up.

The best use it has seen (in my opinion) that it has seen is as a heritage centre. You see, because the Tron is (relatively) new in an Old Town, underneath its wooden floors lurk the foundations and closes of medieval Edinburgh.

Except that’s not quite the end of the Tron. When it closed, it did so because the bulk of its congregation departed the Old Town as a result of slum clearances. Many were given new Council houses in the Moredun area of the City, and the congregation moved in to a new parish church, the Moredun Tron Kirk (now Gilmerton & Moredun Tron).

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