The Hub, Edinburgh
Captivating audiences of Edinburgh both old and new is this building known as The Hub. Intimidating and overtly gothic with its dark spire and red doors, the site is breath-taking.
Of course this building was not purpose built to be the events capital of Edinburgh, it was a church (which seems obvious when you look at it). Much like Bedlam Theatre, The Hub gives off if-Dracula-Came-to-Edinburgh vibes and we adore it, but let's look into its history.
The Highland Tolbooth St John's Church was used as a church long before the ground was consecrated for this use. It was built between 1842 and 1845 and was originally intended as just a meeting hall for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. J Gillespie Graham and Augustus Pugin designed the hall in its Gothic Revival style, but why they built a church hall to be so grand with its 71.7 metre spire making it the highest point within the central city we dont know.
The church's congregation had been meeting in St Giles along with 3 other churches, but they had to relocate between the years of 1829 and 1831 when St Giles had to undergo restoration works. For a more permanent place of worship, they considered Holyrood Abbey's remains (obviously being restored) but this quickly fell flat and the plans for Knox Memorial Church at the base of Castlehill seemed more appealing instead. The foundations had already been laid in the same year St Giles began its restoration by Thomas Hamilton, and so the congregation settled upon this site and brought Graham on board to design a new building to be known as Victoria Hall.
Queen Victoria herself laid a foundation stone for the site in 1842 during her first visit to the city and a year later one of the other church congregations that worshipped at St Giles, Tolbooth Kirk, relocated to Victoria Hall too.
1873 brought the detachment of the parish as it became a Quoad Sacra Parish. This meant that they only met for sacred matters, not civil and this sort of thing was made up due to the ever expanding city. It was common during the 19th century in order to service a parish of multiple churches which is obvious here as St Giles was already split into 4 churches for the congregations who worshipped there.
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland continued to meet in the lower hall of the church until 1929 when the United Free Church of Scotland re-entered the Church of Scotland and the combined congregation opted to use the United Free Church's General Assembly Hall for meets instead. The hall was then used by various congregations for worship even though the building had not been blessed for this purpose and was only a hall, not a church.
In 1956 the matter was solved and the site was renamed the Highland Tolbooth St John's Church (and with the new name we assume it was consecrated), but this didn't stay this way for long. A mere 23 years later in 1979 the Tolbooth congregation combined with Greyfriars Kirk and moved across to their church, subsequently closing the Highland Tolbooth St John's Church.
For the next 20 years the site remained practically abandoned until some bright spark decided to revive this grand building and so it was redeveloped to create office spaces and a performance space for The Edinburgh International Festival. It was then renamed The Hub and opened by Queen Elizabeth during a ceremony in 1999. It remains in use for this purpose to this very day!
Despite it looking as though it *should* be haunted, we don't think this site is, unless of course you count the day to day ghosties wandering this grand and gothic city. We feel as though it should be haunted by a monster or ghost from classic literature, but sadly this is not the case. To our knowledge anyway. Maybe Ren should convert her blogging skills to another use?
Regardless, we recommend adding this site on anyone's list of must sees in Edinburgh. The chances are that you'll walk past it anyway due to its proximity to the castle and the Royal Mile, but stop a moment and take a closer look. If you love architecture like we do then you won't regret it!
DISCLAIMER: Now for the official bit. This blog does not receive any paid promotions from the places mentioned above. We have not been approached to promote or act as spokespersons for any attraction mentioned within this post and this is simply a post intended to act as a day in the life of a couple on a cute date. All photos included are taken by ourselves and as such the rights for these images our ours, no links, brands, or companies mentioned otherwise belong or are associated with Phantom Adventures UK. We are responsible only for this blog. Opinions are our own and not influenced by any third party source..
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