The Church of St Mary and St Anne was founded in 1484 on Trongate, Glasgow. A new church was built on the same site in 1592 with a steeple fronting Trongate. In 1793, this church was destroyed by a fire leaving only the steeple and surrounding shops.

The Adam office made at least three groups of alternative designs to replace the Church, considering the removal of the surviving steeple and shops that fronted Trongate. These designs have been attributed to James Adam. Each design involved a heavily ornamented front with flanking houses and shops and an irregular-shaped church to the rear. The proposed houses and shops were never executed and what was built appears to be a reduced version of SM Adam volume 48/20, comprising a rectangular church with a central bow and relatively plain elevation, with flanking staircases.

The Church stopped being a place of worship in 1946 and was leased in 1979 to the Glasgow Theatre Club. In 1981, the Church was converted into a theatre by McGurn, Logan and Duncan and most of the interior was lost except for part of the gallery, and the dome which contains some possible Adam plasterwork.

Literature: A.T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Volume II, Index, 1922, p.15; A. Gomme, D. Walker, The Architecture of Glasgow, 1968, pp. 47, 51, 62; D. King, The Complete Works of Robert & James Adam and Unbuilt Adam, Volume 1, 2001, pp. 71-73; Volume 2, 2001, p. 66

Louisa Catt, 2023