Holy Trinity Church, Fullarton Street, Ayr, Ayr, South Ayrshire

Entry Name: Holy Trinity Church, Fullarton Street, Ayr

Listing Name: Fullarton Street, Holy Trinity Church (Scottish Episcopal) Including Church Hall, Gatepiers, Gates, Railings and Boundary Wall

Listing Date: 5 February 1971

Category: A

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 356962

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB21586

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Ayr, Fullarton Street, Holy Trinity Church

ID on this website: 200356962

Location: Ayr

County: South Ayrshire

Town: Ayr

Electoral Ward: Ayr West

Traditional County: Ayrshire

Tagged with: Church building Gothic Revival

Description

John Loughborough Pearson, 1888, completed by Frank Pearson, 1898-1900. 2-bay Early English Gothic church with 3-stage square-plan tower to left (completed Roger Pinckney, 1964). Coursed, squared sandstone. Buttresses divide bays. Cill course; lancet-arched openings.

SE (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: lower 2-stages of tower to left original, 3rd stage 1964 (see Notes); 5 alternate blind and lancet openings at 2nd stage arcade; 3 arched louvred openings at 3rd stage; corbelling work above; castellated parapet; pyramidal roof; cross finial at apex. Buttress divides paired arched entrance; central trumeau columns form 2 arches; glazed entrance doors; roundels to spandrels (narrow arrowslit opening to left); three openings above; cross finial to gablehead. Single opening to gabled bay to outer right; cross finial to gablehead; octagonal turret to buttress.

NE (REAR) ELEVATION: 3-bay. Tracery window to St John's Chapel to outer left; rose window to S aisle gable aligned above; 2 stages of 3 openings to sanctuary; moulded roundels flank taller central window at upper stage; arrowslit opening to gablehead; cross finial to gablehead. 2 single openings to lower height section to right; stack to blank gablehead of N aisle aligned above.

SE (SIDE) ELEVATION: 4 lancet openings to S aisle (bay to outer left blank); hoodmoulds to openings. 3-bay section to lower St John's Chapel; hoodmoulded entrance to outer left, timber door; pair of bipartite openings to bay to left and central bay. 3 traceried openings above to sanctuary.

Stained glass and leaded windows. Grey slate roof; red ridge tiles; stone skews; wallhead stack; circular can.

INTERIOR: stone arched clustered column arcade to nave, moulded haunch and annulet sections; timber pews. Baptistry to SW corner; stone font by C Pilkington Jackson; bell on stand (see Notes). Organ to NW corner, pendants to pipes; door leads to robing-rooms. Carved stone pulpit depicting Christ and the apostles. Wrought-iron rood screen to choir; poppyhead finials to timber pews. Sanctuary: gilded and painted timber triptych reredos above High Altar by Frank Pearson (son of the architect); pedimented aumbry to left; sedilia and stone piscina to right. St John's Chapel to NE corner; originally known as the Lady Chapel; wrought-iron screen; carpet a Wilton copy of the 16th century Ardabil Persian Carpet (original at Victoria and Albert Museum, London). Stained glass includes work by Clayton & Bell.

CHURCH HALL: 1860 (formerly church school). Single storey, 10-bay church hall. Rubble. 3 entrances to SE elevation to 1st, 6th and 9th bays; windows to 7th and 8th bays break eaves to form dormers. Timber windows; grey slate roof; stone skews; rooflights; gablehead stacks; circular cans.

GATEPIERS, GATES, RAILINGS AND BOUNDARY WALL: iron gatepiers to church entrance; stone gatepier to church hall entrance; iron railings atop boundary wall to entrance elevation; coped harled wall to NE elevation; brick wall to NW elevation.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such (Scottish Episcopal). The church opened for worship in 1900, and was consecrated in 1908, replacing the previous Fullarton Street Church of 1839. The architect of Holy Trinity, John Loughborough Pearson, also designed Truro and Brisbane Cathedrals, with the Fullarton Street church being of special interest as the only near-complete example of his work in Scotland. The bell on display, approximately 15 inches in diameter, is inscribed, "Michael o Bvrgerhvys o Me o Fecit o 16Z5." The bell was cast at Middelburg in Holland in 1625 to the order of Rev. John Fergusson, who was minister of the parish of Barnweil, then an Episcopal Church. It was presented to the present church by Major General Neill in 1857, and hung in a wooden belfry (now removed). The church's proposed 92ft tower and spire, replaced by a truncated tower in precast concrete by Roger Pinckney in 1964.

External Links

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