Ebenezer Church

The building described here seems to date from 1868, when it was opened as a dance hall, concert theatre and meeting place. It was entered from Great Junction Street through a ‘tunnel’ under the tenements, and also had a side entrance on Bowling Green Street.

A report from 1877 tells how the hall was packed to hear men of the 11th Company of 1st Midlothian Rifle Volunteers give a performance of ‘Midnight Sentinel’, with a scene adapted from the French of a ‘Fortress near Marseilles’! A balcony seat was 3/- (15p) and a seat in the upper gallery 6d (2½d).

The hall was then used by the Salvation Army, and in 1895 became the Ebenezer Church, a congregation of the Free Church of Scotland. That denomination became part of the United Free Church of Scotland in 1900 and although most of the UF congregations merged with the Church of Scotland in 1929 the Ebenezer Church was one of the congregations that did not.

The church, along with the surrounding tenements, was demolished in the 1970s when the area was cleared for construction of the Quilts housing development. The church relocated to a new building a short distance away in Bangor Road, where it still is.