Greyfriars Kirk

Greyfriars Kirk, now 'Greyfriars Tolbooth & Highland Kirk', is a parish kirk (church) of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its name reflects a pre-Reformation association with the Franciscan order, the Grey Friars. It is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Edinburgh outside the Old Town, built between 1602 and c.1620. It is adjacent to the back of George Heriot's School, which was founded in 1628.

The kirk has an important place in Scottish history; opened in 1620, it was the first church built in Edinburgh after the Reformation. In 1638 the National Covenant, a protest against attempts by King Charles 1 to exert control over the Scottish Church, was signed in front of the pulpit of Greyfriars Kirk, and in 1679, about 1200 Covenanters were imprisoned in Greyfriars Kirkyard pending trial. The present Kirkyard contains "The Martyrs Monument" commemorating the hundred or so Covenanters who were subsequently executed. The Kirkyard is the burial place of many of these and of many other notable Scots. One of the graves is that of Duncan Ban MacIntyre (d 1812) who fought against the Jacobites in 1745, never learned to read, and sold illicit whisky in the Lawnmarket to make a living, but who is recognised as one of the most important Gaelic poets of his time. Dr Robert Lee, the minister of Greyfriars Kirk at the time, was a leader of a movement to reform worship in Presbyterian churches. He introduced to the Kirk the first post-Reformation stained glass windows, and one of the first organs in a Presbyterian Church in Scotland.