Building work in front of St Patrick's Church, Cowgate, Edinburgh - Photograph

Looking down from High School Yards towards St Patrick's Church.
The Cowgate can be seen in the bottom-left corner of the photograph.

Building work in front of

St Patrick's Church

New Hotel

Building work is well underway in the SW corner of the church grounds on a new £900,000, 73-bedroom 'Express Inn' hotel.

The five-storey, sandstone and glass hotel is being built on land leased from St Patrick's Church. Funds from the leasing are to be used to build a new Community Hall behind the hotel.

Edinburgh Evening News, June 11, 2007

2005

Here is a view, taken in 2005, looking across the Cowgate to the church:

2007

Thank you to Bob Henderson, Burdiehouse, who wrote:

To the East of the Church

"The frontage of St. Pats is still as you see it in the photo above.

The Travel Lodge hotel, facing on to St Mary's Street, is actually the old Ben Line offices and is built up alongside the east wall of the chapel."

The Travelodge Hotel can be seen in the photo below, which looks down the Pleasance and across to St Mary Street.

Refurbished Church

"As you can see the church has all been refurbished and is magnificent, all light and airy. They do not use the front entrance now, the area at the rear of the building has been partitioned off and is now used for office space etc. Everyone now enters by the side entrance next to the chapel house."

To the West of the Church

"There is also a new building which is going up on what used to be the large water tank during the war, then it was a bowling green, but because it did not get enough use it was converted to a garden. Unfortunately it was not looked after properly and became a bit of a dump.

When the new building is finished it will not encroach on the view of the front elevation of the building but it will make it look hemmed in."

Bob Henderson, Burdiehouse, Edinburg: December 10, 2007.