English: The building of the Tron Kirk was started in 1637 but not completed until 1678 because of delays caused by the Wars of the Covenant after 1638. It was Edinburgh's first presbyterian kirk, free of any taint of Catholicism attached to the history of Greyfriars and St. Giles. It takes its name from the 'tron', the weighing-machine that stood nearby to check that market traders were using genuine weights. The spire was rebuilt in 1828 after the original had been destroyed in a fire.

14th Oct, 1584. At this time, the common Council ordered the town to be divided into four parishes, to have each its proper church, according to the several quarters of the city, viz. St. Giles's Church for the Southwest quarter, Magdalen Chapel for the Southeast; the New Church [Tron] for the Northwest; and the Trinity Church for the Northeast quarter; the last whereof being ordered to be inclosed within the city wall, and a new gate to be made in the said wall at the foot of Halkerton's Wynd. -- Wm. Maitland, History of Edinburgh, 1753