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Murrayfield Parish Church, Abinger Gardens, Edinburgh

A Category B Listed Building in Edinburgh, Edinburgh

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Coordinates

Latitude: 55.946 / 55°56'45"N

Longitude: -3.2406 / 3°14'26"W

OS Eastings: 322613

OS Northings: 673246

OS Grid: NT226732

Mapcode National: GBR 8CJ.20

Mapcode Global: WH6SL.6T23

Plus Code: 9C7RWQW5+CP

Entry Name: Murrayfield Parish Church, Abinger Gardens, Edinburgh

Listing Name: 14-16 Abinger Gardens and Ormidale Terrace, Murrayfield Parish Church (Church of Scotland)

Listing Date: 14 December 1970

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 364163

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB27148

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Edinburgh, Abinger Gardens, Murrayfield Parish Church

ID on this website: 200364163

Location: Edinburgh

County: Edinburgh

Town: Edinburgh

Electoral Ward: Corstorphine/Murrayfield

Traditional County: Midlothian

Tagged with: Church building

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Description

A Hunter Crawford, 1905. Chancel and N transept completed and organ chamber added by A Balfour Paul, 1929-31. Hall by J Wilson Paterson, 1956. Cruciform church with curvilinear tracery, incomplete angle buttressed SW tower and large W window. Squared and snecked Hailes rubble, with Prudham stone cusped tracery and polished details. Advanced 2-tier base course to SW tower. Gabled buttresses; chamfered cills and corbelled hoodmoulds to windows; eaves course to S elevation; skews and skewputts.

W ELEVATION: 3-bay. 2-leaf timber doors with ornamental strap hinges at right of bay to left at ground; rectilinear surround, with chamfered pointed arch opening and blind quatrefoil to spandrels; bipartite window to left with rectilinear surround and ogee-cusped tracery; small light above door; banded eaves course; piend roof above; 3 evenly disposed bipartite windows with rectilinear surrounds and ogee-cusped tracery at ground of bay to centre; large pointed-arched window filling gable at upper floor level; window comprises 2 principal mullions; ogee-cusped tracery between mullions, above tall central light; 3 tall narrow lights to either side of mullions, with ogee-cusped tracery above; bipartite pointed-arch window to ground of bay to right, above base course; narrow light set to left at top storey.

S AND E ELEVATIONS: 7-bay. Single-bay tower at outer left and south transept fifth bay from left advanced. Depressed three-centred opening to porch at ground of SW tower; rectilinear panels flanking with blind ogee-cusped tracery; large engaged finial links with unusual heavy moulding to band course above, projecting at either end; bipartite pointed-arch window above with ogee-cusped tracery; large pointed-arch window, comprising 3 tall lights with tracery above, to 3 bays between tower and transept, each separated by buttress; band course above; steps up to single storey porch set across re-entrant angle at right; raised rectilinear pattern to door in four-centred opening with dentilled band course above; large window to angle buttressed S transept, comprising 4 tall lights with ogee-cusped tracery above; narrow rectangular light to gable; piend-roofed square-plan addition to corner of return to E (organ chamber), with narrow round-arched light to each face; bipartite traceried window to right of addition; large pointed-arch window with curvilinear tracery to chancel and cross finial to gable above to E, end elevation.

INTERIOR: high, chamfered arcades open into aisles. High-pitched oak roof with arched hammerbeam trusses; wagon roof to chancel. Organ chamber opens off S side of chancel; organ by Brooke of Glasgow, 1870, rebuilt by AE Ingram, 1925, moved from the Holy Rude, Stirling, in 1936, rebuilt by Rushworth & Dreaper, 1962. Light oak choir stalls and panelling (with gilded carving in light relief at E wall) by J Murray Reid, 1930, to chancel. Gallery and NW staircase from Ormidale Terrace also by Balfour Paul. E window depicting Last Supper and Crucifixion by Douglas Strachan RSA, 1934; remaining chancel lights by Herbert Hendrie, 1936. James Ballantine was responsible for 4 lights of Saints Columba, Ninian, Cuthbert and Margaret in S transept. William Wilson (also author of the 4 pairs of Old Testament lights in the vestibule, 1961) executed the Nativity lights in the N transept, 1964. Robert S Lorimer, 1921, carried out the WWI war memorial of carved oak with a canopy to the south of the chancel arch.

HALL: symmetrical 2-storey, 3-bay addition with polished margins and banded eaves course. Deep-set 2-leaf timber door, with flanking lights to centre at ground; bipartite windows to remaining bays at ground and to all bays, 1st floor. No major alterations except expansion of altar area.

Statement of Interest

The hall added to the N of the W front accentuates the horizontality of this end of the church. Wide ashlar steps with a landing stage and flanked by coped coursed walls lead up to porch at W of S elevation.

External Links

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