Synod Hall, Castle Terrace
The Synod Hall in Edinburgh was located on Castle Terrace behind the Usher Hall and the Lyceum Theatre.
Built in 1875 and opened on 20th December in that year as 'The Edinburgh Theatre' for the Edinburgh Theatre, Winter Garden and Aquarium Company.
In September 1876 the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church took over the building as a new Synod and Theological Hall. It later bacame a cinema in the 1920s.
Edinburgh Corporation bought the Synod Hall Buildings from the Church in 1902, for £30,570, and made them available for public letting. The Poole Family, who had been entrepreneurs in Showmanship (theatre, exhibitions and, later, films) since 1837, hired it regularly, but not exclusively. While older Edinburgh citizens invariably talk about ‘Poole’s Synod Hall’, that title was appropriate only from 1928, when the Pooles took a permanent tenancy of the large hall instead of just seasonal lets.
This Category B Listed building was demolished in March/April, 1966
Further information on the Synod Hall is available on the website of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland:
- The Synod Hall
- Poole's Synod Hall - The Scotsman (with photograph)
- The Synod Hall (Ian Balfour)
The site is now home to an office building called Saltire Court.