I hope to visit sometime this year and find out more.

As I remembered that brief visit, the Church was flooded with sunlight and my impression was that the paintings were on the ceiling.

My next visit was in the 1990s when driving past, I noted that it had re-opened as the Cafe Graffiti. Parking the car, I again briefly visited it, to note that the interior generally was in a decrepit state; and that the main paintings were in fact on the walls.

This was followed by a visit in about 2007 after being taken over and restored by the Mansfield-Traquair Trust, on one of the Open Days with a guided tour.

What a transformation.

Whilst the McEwan Hall gives some idea of how some of the cathedrals once looked like internally, it is scarcely preparation for the glorious interior of this church.

I was born and brought up in 51 Bellevue Road Edinburgh; and the caretakers of the Apostolic Church until they died in the early 1950s, were the Woods, an elderly couple who lived immediately above us in No53.

They had a newsagent’s shop in Broughton Street, with the more restricted opening hours of that period. (Most Princes Street shops were closed on Saturday afternoons and all-day Sunday.)

Hence on a Saturday afternoon, the Woods prepared the Church for the Sunday Services. It was during one of those occasions that my mother, noting that the doors were open, went in, taking me with her (of course).

John Betjeman (later Sir JB, Poet Laureate) visited the Church whenever he had time in his visits to Edinburgh. Walking down from Princes Street, he called in at the Woods shop to borrow the keys; and if closed, tried calling at the Church and frequently arriving at No53 Bellevue Road.

If the Woods were not at home, he would call at No51 to enquire if my mother knew their whereabouts.

During the 2007 tour, it was mentioned that the Altar had been acquired by the Roman Catholic Cathedral at the top of Broughton Street, in the 1960s.

Regarding the outer doors, they were definitely red during the 1940s and (early?) 1950s; bur were altered to blue (and looking very cold) probably in the late 1950s or early 1960s – did not look right in blue; and now restored to red.

If there are inner doors as suggested by one correspondent, I do not remember them. My general impression was of varnished woodwork amounting to draught protection, leading through similar varnished doors, in to the “smaller” front part of the Church. The outer doors hinged back in to the entry area, so could give the impression that they were recessed or inner doors, with an open, arched vestibule or foyer.

That 2007 visit stimulated me to research the history of the Church and the Catholic Apostolic Creed. The Creed apparently started in Germany about the 1830s, spreading to other countries in later years. Although there is no direct connection, the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) started about the same period.

In the UK, it attracted many of “the great and the good”, hence the Edinburgh adherents having the finance and power to build effectively a medium-sized cathedral very quickly in the 1870s.

In the 1881 Census, the minister, William(?) Seton, is living in Broughton Point Cottage, next to Broughton Point Dairy Farm where my Great-Grandfather Dow lived from about 1885 until his death in 1914.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Apostolic Church was 12 Apostles, with assistants. These were appointed at an Assembly; but no provision was made for Successors, so as the original appointees died, the movement withered away, resulting amongst other things in the abandonment of the Edinburgh church.

Interestingly for me, there were apparently two early British members, brothers Dow.

Apparently when the Assembly met to appoint and anoint the Apostles in London, the selected Dow brother did not turn up, resulting in the other brother being “pressed” into service. I make no claims of family connections, most unlikely as my Dow ancestry is clearly Scottish.

Alex Dow

Jen Randall
Chicago, IL, USA