St. Antony's (Anthony's) Chapel

Category

Library Item

Item no

1114

Title

St. Antony's (Anthony's) Chapel

Artist / maker

Skene, James

Date

1818

Size

17 x 19 cm.

Type

Watercolour

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

The wind swept remains of St Anthony's chapel stand in the Queen's Park, about a quarter of a mile east of Holyrood Palace, are. The precise history of the chapel is unclear. It may, as James Skene suggests, have been associated with a monastery of the same name at Leith, one of a number of religious foundations, including Franciscan and Dominican monasteries, which existed in or near Edinburgh prior to the reformation (1) . In 1614, the property of the monastery at Leith was transferred by James VI to the Kirk Session for Leith for the purpose of erecting a hospital to be called King James' hospital "for the support and nourishment of 12 old women". In 1753, William Maitland notes that the hospital adjoined the Parish church in South Leith "til a few years ago"(2) . In Reekiana, James Skene reflects on the romantic position of St Anthony's Chapel: "From its position in view of the Forth it probably partook of the character of the hermitages to be seen perched on conspicuous pinnacles on the coast of France and Italy dedicated to Maria de la Guardia for seamen to address their distant vows to on taking leave or returning to port"(3).

(1) Skene James, Reekiana, 1836, Edinburgh Central Library Archive, 144
(2) Maitland, William, History of Edinburgh, 1753, 495
(3) Skene, Reekiana, 144

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