Colour photograph, 2000
Survey by RCAHMS
The Catholic Apostolic Church at Mansfield Place, Edinburgh was completed in 1885 and was built in the Scottish neo-Romanesque style to the designs of the architect Sir Robert Rowand Anderson (1834-1921).
Depicting the Temptation of Adam and Eve, and the Expulsion from Eden, this is one of many murals decorating the interior. These murals, painted in the 1890s by the artist Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852-1936), greatly enhance the spiritual beauty of the building. Traquair was a leading exponent of the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement and these murals helped her gain international recognition.
The Catholic Apostolic Church closed in 1958 and thereafter was not well maintained until 1993, when the Mansfield Traquair Trust was established to ensure its preservation.
RCAHMS undertook a survey of the building in 2000 prior to restoration work.