Trinity House, Leith

Trinity House, 99 Kirkgate, is a category A listed building in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, which was a guild hall, customs house, and centre for maritime administration and poor relief. In the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Era it also served as an almshouse and hospital. Now in state care, it houses a maritime museum.

Trinity House was the headquarters of the Incorporation of Masters and Mariners, a trade incorporation and charitable organisation founded in the 14th century when the shipowners and shipmasters of Leith formed a Fraternity (from which the name, Trinity, may derive). The present Trinity House is a Category A listed Georgian neoclassical house, designed by Thomas Brown and built in 1816-8, using the existing basement and vaults of the former Trinity House and mariners' hospital of 1555.

Concerned to improve safety at sea, Trinity House established the first formal nautical training in the country and licensed pilots for the Forth and around the Scottish coast. By collecting Licht Money (English: light money), by the 17th century they were maintaining primitive coal-fired lights in the Forth. In the 19th century, Trinity House was involved in the planning and funding of new and more reliable lighthouses that took advantage of improvements in technology. These included the Bell Rock lighthouse, Fidra lighthouse and the Isle of May lighthouse.

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