page_title: St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh
section_title: Chancel furnishings
hierarchical_section_title: St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh / Features / Chancel furnishings
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Cuthbert 's Kirk pulpit, c.1906
context_page_description: The Parish Church of St Cuthbert is a parish church of the Church of Scotland in central Edinburgh. Likely founded in the 7th century, the church once covered an extensive parish around the burgh of Edinburgh. The church's current building was designed by Hippolyte Blanc and completed in 1894.
  St Cuthbert's is situated within a large churchyard that bounds Princes Street Gardens and Lothian Road. A church was likely founded on this site during or shortly after the life of Cuthbert. The church is first recorded in 1128, when David I granted it to Holyrood Abbey. At that time, the church covered an extensive parish, which was gradually reduced until the 20th century by the erection and expansion of other parishes, many of which were founded as chapels of ease of St Cuthbert's. St Cuthbert's became a Protestant church at the Scottish Reformation in 1560: from after the Reformation until the 19th century, the church was usually called the West Kirk. After the Restoration in 1660, the congregation remained loyal to the Covenanters. The church's position at the foot of Castle Rock saw it damaged or destroyed at least four times between the 14th and 17th centuries.
context_section_description: The central focus of the east end of St Cuthbert’s is the communion table, which was ready in time for the opening of the church in 1894. The table is white marble, its front is divided into three compartments by Corinthian pilasters. The central compartment contains a cross of Aventurine marble with a golden centre and porphyry infill. The cross imitates the cross found in Saint Cuthbert's tomb. Either side of the central compartment are compartments decorated with mother of pearl and lapis lazuli. Presbyterian churches have traditionally centred on the pulpit rather than the communion table and, shortly after its unveiling, the Glasgow Herald condemned the table as a "stone altar".
  On the south side of the chancel arch stands the marble pulpit: designed by Hippolyte Blanc, the pulpit was installed in 1898 to replace an earlier wooden pulpit. The pulpit stands on four red marble pillars – quarried at Sant'Ambrogio near Verona – with white Ionic capitals. The body of the pulpit is panelled with verd antique; its central panel bears a relief carving of an angel.  Beneath the pulpit, the church's foundation stone rests on fragments of Gothic masonry discovered during the demolition of the previous church.
  Next to the font stands the lectern in the form of a full-length bronze angel, sculpted by David Watson Stevenson and installed in 1895.
  At the south side of the chancel arch stands the font, designed by Thomas Armstrong and installed in 1908. The font is hexagonal and executed in white marble with a bronze portrait relief by MacGill; the bowl is a trough surrounding a bronze sculpture of a mother and child, based on Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges. Armstrong based the font's design on Jacopo della Quercia's font of Siena Cathedral. At its installation, the sculpture divided those who praised its aesthetic qualities and those who believed a Madonna to be inappropriate in a Presbyterian church. The matter was sufficiently controversial as to be discussed at the General Assembly in 1912.
  Blanc designed the wooden chancel stalls. The choir stalls in the chancel have scroll-topped ends, similar to the pews of the nave. The elders' stalls in the apse display more elaborate Renaissance details.
caption: Pulpit of St Cuthbert's Church
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