Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel)

The lodge's later premises at 19 Hill Street, photographed in 2012. These premises were acquired in 1893. Photograph: kim traynor, CC BY-SA 2.0.

The Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) No. 1 is a Masonic lodge in Edinburgh. Its surviving minutes begin on 31 July 1599 and document the activities of working stonemasons, followed by the admission of members from other occupations during the seventeenth century.^[1]^[2]

Records and early organisation

The date of the first surviving minute establishes that the lodge existed by July 1599; it does not establish when the lodge was founded. Stevenson lists an earlier surviving reference for Aitchison's Haven, dated 9 January of the same year. The Edinburgh lodge describes its own record as the oldest minute belonging to a lodge that still exists.^[1]^[2]

The lodge was closely connected with Edinburgh's Incorporation of Masons and Wrights. Both used the same premises, and the incorporation's mason deacon presided in the lodge. They nevertheless remained distinct bodies. The incorporation exercised authority granted by the burgh, while the lodge asserted the craft's right to regulate its own affairs.^[3]

Disputes over the position of wage-earning journeymen led to a separate organisation in 1707. Litigation followed in 1714 and an arbitration settlement in 1715. Stevenson relates this division to the attempts of incorporation masters to control the lodge, rather than treating its members as a socially uniform body.^[3]

Membership beyond stonemasonry

John Boswell of Auchinleck attended a meeting in 1600, but Stevenson cautions that his presence does not conclusively establish that he had been admitted as a Mason. Firmer evidence comes from the admission in 1634 of Anthony Alexander, the royal master of works, his brother Lord Alexander and Sir Alexander Strachan of Thornton.^[4]

Robert Moray joined in 1641 at a meeting held in Newcastle. Other seventeenth-century members included a physician, merchants, lawyers and an architectural practitioner. Their arrival did not immediately replace the lodge's working masons. Stevenson finds that non-operatives remained a small minority and that their recruitment occurred in uneven episodes, with a long interruption after 1674.^[2]^[4]

John Theophilus Desaguliers visited and was admitted in 1721. The lodge later sent representatives to the formation of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1736.^[4]^[2]

Mary's Chapel and Hill Street

The lodge's name preserves its association with Mary's Chapel in Niddry's Wynd. After the chapel and wynd were demolished in 1787, the lodge used several meeting places. It acquired 19 Hill Street in 1893 and neighbouring property at No. 17 in 1911.^[5]

Alterations in 1924 connected parts of the two properties and introduced oak panelling in the lodge room. The lodge's account identifies Thomas McRea as the architect and designer.^[5]

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590–1710 (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 190–192, 234.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) No. 1, Oldest Masonic Minutes and The admission of Speculative Freemasons. Accessed 30 September 2026.
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 Stevenson, Origins of Freemasonry, p. 192.
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 Stevenson, Origins of Freemasonry, pp. 197–199.
↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 Lodge of Edinburgh, Mary's Chapel and Hill Street. Accessed 30 September 2026.