Description

Sir Robert Lorimer, 1897-99. Squat, single storey, cruciform-plan church in Scots idiom with Perpendicular tracery. Coursed, rough Hailes stone, with polished coursed sandstone buttresses and dressings, including mullions and long and short surrounds. Skews and skewputts; finials to gables.

SW (FRONT) ELEVATION: large, four-centred 6-light window divided by gabled and finialled central buttress; small, louvered opening to gablehead.

SE (SIDE) ELEVATION: advanced, gabled entrance porch at left, comprising recessed 2-leaf timber door with attached sandstone flags forming unusual geometrical decoration above; small chamfered light to gablehead; window to SW return; advanced, piend-roofed block at NE, sloping down at far end; bipartite window to centre with small single window at left and door to right; timber door set in pointed-arch opening to SW return; bipartite traceried windows, separated by buttresses, to each of 3 bays between porch at SW and block at NE.

NW (SIDE) ELEVATION: 5 regularly disposed windows set in brick wall (see below); pointed-arch opening to return of advanced, gabled block at NE end.

Leaded lights to tracery, plain at SW end, stained to side aisles; grey slate roof; cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: windows in 5 bays to NW side wall contain mixture of plain and stained glazing of varying dates; 3 windows at the SE are all stained glass, by Margaret Chilton; cills slope inwards, unlike those to the 'temporary' NW wall (see Notes), which are flat. 3 lights in E window showing Crucifixion by Oscar Paterson, who also did porch windows. Lectern at front left of church, bearing exquisitely carved naturalistic detail, designed by Lorimer. Perpendicular screen incorporates elaborately carved cusped tracery, while organ, by Brindley & Foster (1884), was moved from a private house in 1905. Cross-ribbed celure to chancel and, to SE wall, stone panelled stalls with carved details above. Original Lorimer drawing of church, complete with tower above the vestry and NW aisle, hangs on back wall, to right of plain leaded SW window, next to which stands incised stone font on a fluted Gothic pedestal.

Statement of Interest

Lorimer's original scheme incorporated a square-plan tower above the choir and vestry, and an aisle at the NW side. These features were never executed, or rather the tower was stopped at wallhead level, and the present brick wall, initially intended to be temporary, has been retained as the NW elevation.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17807477

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

• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)