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history |
Portobello, St Philip's Free Church was formed at the Disruption of 1843, when the minister of the quoad sacra parish of Portobello and many of his congregation adhered to the Free Church. They worshipped at first in a school in Bath Street, and thereafter in a Relief Church building that had been offered to them. Shortly afterwards this building was purchased by the Free Church, and the Relief and Free Church congregations united. Sadly, the church was destroyed by fire on 8 November 1874 , however, a new church was built on a new site and opened for worship in 1877. Initially the new church had no pulpit, but a stone pulpit was installed with a heavy tapestry screen behind it, in 1885. A Manse was built sometime afterwards and the school that was built in 1844, and sat behind the original church was taken down and replaced by a church hall. The charge passed successively to the United Free Church in 1900 and back to the Established Church as Portobello St Philip's (Joppa) Church of Scotland, in 1929. The brackets (Joppa) were dropped from the title sometime in 1962. A union with the congregations of Portobello St James and Portobello Old churches took place in August 2014 to form Portobello and Joppa Church of Scotland. The Church of Scotland charge sits in the presbytery of Edinburgh and was in the synod of Lothian and Tweeddale until the abolition of synods in 1993. |