Description

T Aikman Swan, 1938. Scottish Arts and crafts church. Later additions, harled at rear. Squared and snecked cream/pink stone with yellow ashlar dressings; base course and cornice. Square, leaded glazing pattern. Westmorland slates.

NAVE AND TRANSEPTS: 6-bay with transepts projecting to E and W in outer bays to N; gabled porch in outer S bay of W elevation, canted stairblock from outer S bay of E elevation. Tall lancet windows with deep ashlar surrounds in Gothic manner; side elevations divided by buttresses.

S gabled elevation with wide doorway at centre; roll-moulded rurround and ogival ornament to lintel; deep-set 2-leaf doors; small lights flanking with mannered surrounds; lancet above.

Porch on W elevation bearing doorway with roll-moulded surround and playful lintel; arrow slit in gablehead; higher eaves to S, stepping down via the porch to lower eaves of 4 lancet windowed bays on left.

Stairblock on E elevation with small rectangular window to 3 faces, following stair, with piend roof and with gabled bellcote; flanking eaves stepped, as described above. Transepts each with lancet to S, and to gabled end to E and W stack rising from NW corner of W transept, with rounded angles.

Low single storey, harled, piend-roofed addition to NW of church, with doorway and window set in re-entrant angle with W transept.

RETAINING WALLS: rubble and harled walls with 2 driveway entrances with simple wrought-iron gates, incorporating initials KMW.

INTERIOR: centre aisle; gallery at S end with simple panelled parapet and pair of 2-leaf doors below. Whitewashed walls with panelled dado at chancel. Barrow-vault with timber trabeation and cornice. Wide pointed archways dividing nave from chancel and transepts. Panelled pitch pine pews, polygonal pulpit with stair and communion table. Decorative stone font. 3 stained glass windows in chancel, circa 1840, brought from church at West Byres, depicting Moses, Jesus Christ and St Paul.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such (Church of Scotland). Cost of building was $6,000, with $5,000 suppled by the Baird Trust and $1,000 by the congregation. The ruins of St Giles, the earliest church in the parish, lie to the E of the Old Hall, and are scheduled. The later church, St John's was condemned circa 1930, and the Ormiston community hall now fills the gap. Aikman Swan's design bears strong echoes of the Kinross-Lorimer brand of Arts and Crafts work, and as he was also an active member of the Edinburgh Architectural Association, this is not surprising. See also the snecked, gabled tenements in Dalkeith High Street, circa 1935. Reginald Fairlie's churches (such as St Aidan's, Gullane) display a similar simple, design with effective colour contrast.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17791628

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014