St James The Less Episcopal Church, Inverleith Row, Goldenacre, Edinburgh

St James, Goldenacre — St James the Less Episcopal Church on Inverleith Row — is a Scottish Episcopal church in north Edinburgh, designed by Robert Rowand Anderson and opened in 1888. A Category B listed building, it has been called a treasure house of the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement, its interior enriched by a roll-call of distinguished artists: William Hole's spirit frescoes, Sir John James Burnet's chancel and baptistery, glass by Henry Payne and Douglas Strachan, and sculpture by Gilbert Bayes and Pilkington Jackson.

The congregation was founded by the Rev Edward Craig to relieve overcrowding at St Paul's Church — now Old St Paul's — and first occupied a building of 1829 in Broughton Place. In 1883 that building was sold and the congregation moved to the present site, feued from the Fettes Trust, erecting a hall first while a competition was held for the new church. Robert Rowand Anderson — architect of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the McEwan Hall — won in 1885, and the church was built by John Beattie and Son in red Corsehill stone. The Bishop of Edinburgh opened it in 1888, though consecration waited until 1894, when the building was free of debt; for many years it was known as "St James's Church, Inverleith Row". The narrow site, east end to the street, holds a chancel, a three-bay nave with south aisle and a short tower — Anderson provided for two further nave bays and a taller tower, but neither was built.

The interior's glory began with an act of generosity: in 1894 the Vestry accepted the offer of the distinguished artist William Hole, a member of the congregation, to create a complete painted decoration scheme in his spare time and at no cost. Hole's spirit-fresco frieze carries the words of the Te Deum amid vines, peacocks, apostles, prophets and martyrs, and he painted the triptych of Christ with St George and St Stephen that crowns the altar within the gilded frame added in the chancel alterations of 1898 — a scheme designed by Sir John James Burnet, who also gave the chancel its altar, choir stalls and paving. The chancel windows, depicting the Good Samaritan, are by Henry Payne of Amberley — "two lights with intricate, graceful drawing." Burnet returned in 1922 to design a rood across the chancel arch as a memorial to a former rector, executed by the sculptor Gilbert Bayes; later judged to detract from the view of the chancel, it was removed, and its five sculpted figures now greet worshippers in the entrance vestibule. In 1923 Burnet added the baptistery at the west end of the south aisle, entered through a traceried screen: it holds a font of white Crestola marble, a carved marble frieze reading "Suffer the little children to come unto Me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven", a pair of Douglas Strachan windows of Jesus blessing the children, and high between them a stone Good Shepherd by Charles d'Orville Pilkington Jackson.

The church gathered the congregations of its neighbours as the decades passed. A mission established at Canonmills in 1895 built St Philip's Church in 1909, the joint charge becoming "St Philip's and St James" — St Philip's is now rented to another religious body, and its 1948 "Jesse Tree" carving by Tom Whalen lives in St James's church hall. Christ Church in nearby Trinity, built in 1854 as a private chapel by the Rev Walter Mitchell Goalen and sold to its congregation in 1875, was linked with St James under one rector in 1971; uneconomic to repair, it closed in 1980 — its 1889 Lewis organ going to St Vincent's Chapel, the building becoming a private house — and a Christ Church chapel was created at St James in a former cloakroom, keeping artefacts familiar to the old congregation.

The building has demanded care: major structural problems detected in 1985 led to remedial work and a better street entrance through the former organ chamber, and trouble with the nave ceiling in 2022 moved services temporarily to the hall, with a major restoration project in development from 2024 — launched with a study day on the church's art and architecture in March 2025. Outside, on Remembrance Sunday 2023, the Bishop of Edinburgh blessed a Peace Garden before the church, with its Peace Pole — a place of hope, healing and rest in front of the Arts and Crafts treasure house of Goldenacre.