Description

J Graham Fairley, 1904. Early English church with campanile and en suite 2-storey church halls. Bull-faced, squared and snecked, red sandstone with ashlar dressing; base course; pointed arch openings; battered angle buttresses with gablet caps. Hoodmoulds with block label stops to principal elevations.

E (George Street) elevation: gabled elevation. Door in pointed arch panel at centre; chamfered reveals with nook-shaft capitals; panel head with dogtooth ornament and vesica; recessed porch with 2-leaf wrought-iron gates; lead-paned panels to 2-leaf inner doors. Narrow window with blinded head flanking each side. Stepped 4-light window above with chamfered reveals. String course below gablehead, framed,

louvred vesica and stone cross finial. Tower to left linked by low 2-storey narrow bay.

Tower: north Italian campanile style. Square section tower with deep

battered base course, angle pilasters and ashlar strips; narrow louvred vents and small paired stair windows to street; 4-light pointed arch arcade to each face of bell chamber; Italianate shaped angle dies to parapet with shaped centre panel; towerhead recessed 3-light arcades

and corner dies breaking eaves of piended roof capped by ogival,

polygonal cap with cockerel weathervane finial.

Nave: bipartite windows to clerestorey and to ground to S.

Square-pane leaded windows with coloured border glazing (stained glass,

see interior). Grey slate roof.

Interior: chimneypiece in vestibule. 6-bay nave, arcaded with pointed arches with chamfered arrises clerestorey cill course jumping capitalled nook shafts as annulets; gallery to S aisle. Gothic

detailed red sandstone ashlar communion table with carved panel, en

suite with blind arcaded, octagonal pulpit and octagonal font on shaft with contrasting colonnettes. Open timber roof with corbels rising from nook shafts. Stained glass by William Wilson, 1954 in chancel window, SS Columba, Andrew and Ninian, with panels showing local industries.

Church halls: 2-storey, T-plan, advanced to E, at N of church. Gabled

block at right angles with 3-bay elevation to street comprised of deeply chamfered door at centre, square-headed bipartites flanking at ground, pointed arch bipartite at centre at 1st floor and single pointed arch windows flanking. Corner pilasters breaking eaves as angle parapets. S gable with 2 square-headed windows at ground and stepped 3-light window in pointed arch panel above; ventilation slit at

apex. Further hall extending behind with rooflights.

Interior: Upper hall to rear with decorative open timber roof, canted

timber gallery and oculus, columned arcade. Boarded and coombed roof to upper hall to front block.

Boundary walls: to E, bull-faced squared and snecked sandstone with

gablet coping, swept up to square piers at intervals and to main and side gates, piers with swept, stylised, or shallow dome caps; walls canted in to main entrance. Wrought-iron gates.

Statement of Interest

J Graham Fairley contributed many significant and singular buildings to the landscape of the Lothians; see also church at Blackridge, Broxburn and Uphall and the Linlithgow Academy.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q16736757

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

• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)