Description

Nave and transepts based on sketches by Charles Carmichael (Aberdeen, died Johannesburg 1895). Nave constructed under the direction of Duncan Carmichael (London, see NOTES), 1895; Transepts to original design under direction of T Lindsay Gray (Dundee) 1933; session room and vestries by T Lindsay Gray, 1979. Cruciform-plan, aisleless late Scots Gothic style church. Pink rock-faced and snecked masonry with buff long and short dressings, green slate roof; apse and vestries brick and harled with polished dressings. Windows mainly 3-light with intersecting or geometric tracery, hoodmoulds and mask label stops.

N ELEVATION: 5-bay. Porch 2nd bay from right with diagonal Buttresses capped with short crocketted pinnacles; moulded Gothic arch on nook shafts (glass doors 1984), sculpted figure of St Margaret of Scotland in canopied niche in crowstepped gable; lancet windows E and W elevations; round-headed arch to nave with daisy, thistle and rose motifs; fine rib-vaulted ceiling with lion rampant and thistle wreath boss. N transept at left; angle buttresses, large central window with narrow light to roof.

S ELEVATION: similar but with no porch.

W GABLE ELEVATION: angle burttresses, large window with curvilinear tracery, Celtic cross finial.

E ELEVATION: apse and vestries; polygonal apse with 4 square timber-frame windows abutting E gable, belfry in apex above (bell dated 1895); single storey 3-bay flat roofed (1979? addition.

INTERIOR: Lightly picked and snecked masonry, long and short polished dressings, cill course of grey ashlar; collar braced roof, braces supported on corbels sculpted with arms of European families, some descended from St Margaret.

Windows: nave, W, modelled on similar at Seton Chapel, E Lothian, glazing added 1933 as war memorial; nave, N and S, 7 saints' windows, including (unusually) the Blessed Virgin, 5 of which previously in the temporarychurch (1884-95); N transept, memorial to Normal Patullo by Herbert Hendrie of Edinburgh, circa 1937; S transept, memorial to Clement Godfrey, jute merchant, by T T and C E Stewart, Glasgow 1933. Font designed by Charles Carmichael, executed by David Tocher, mason, Broughty Ferry; pulpit designed by Charles Soutar, circa 1912; brass eagle lectern a replica of that given to Holyrood Abbey by Abbot George Crighton when made Bishop of Dunkeld by James IV in 1526 (now in St Stephen's Church, St Alban's, Hertfordshire), 1896.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Congregation established 1884 in galvanised church now incorporated into church hall, S, having previously been used in Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, and St Luke's, Broughty Ferry. External and internal stone of nave reputed to be from Brox and Drumyellow quarries respectively, both east of Denhead of Arbirlot, Arbroath. Porch adapted from St Mary's, Whitekirk, North Berwick; name modelled on the Collegiate Church at Biggar. Original sketch included a chancel and tower at the crossing. Kinship, if any, between Charles and Duncan Carmichael is unestablished. Charles Carmichael was a founder member of the Aberdeen Ecclesiological Society, of which the Rev Thomas Newbigging Adamson, first minister of St Margaret's (1884-1911) was also a member. Adamson's ecclesiological interests strongly influenced the design of the Church, based upon a 'view of a church designed by the late Charles Carmichael', published with the latter's obituary, op cit. Tradesmen for nave (1895): James Scott, mason, Ellis and Macher, joiners, Peter Lorimer, Plumber, all Broughty Ferry; James Laburn and Sons, Plasterers and slaters, R Farquharson and Son, glaziers, N Norwell, painter, all Dundee.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17812478

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.

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