Latitude: 55.937 / 55°56'13"N
Longitude: -3.2115 / 3°12'41"W
OS Eastings: 324418
OS Northings: 672209
OS Grid: NT244722
Mapcode National: GBR 8JM.Z7
Mapcode Global: WH6SS.M1YG
Plus Code: 9C7RWQPQ+QC
Entry Name: St Oswald's Church And Church Halls, Montpelier Park, Edinburgh
Listing Name: Montpelier Park Boroughmuir High School Annexe Formerly St Oswald's Church and Church Halls
Listing Date: 3 February 1993
Category: B
Source: Historic Scotland
Source ID: 364353
Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB27254
Building Class: Cultural
Also known as: Edinburgh, Montpelier Park, St Oswald's Church And Church Halls
ID on this website: 200364353
Location: Edinburgh
County: Edinburgh
Town: Edinburgh
Electoral Ward: Morningside
Traditional County: Midlothian
Tagged with: Architectural structure Church hall
Henry F Kerr, 1899-1900. Rectangular-plan gothic church with 5-bay nave, side aisles, narthex, porch and side chapel; adjoining hall by kerr, 1894; cream sandstone, coursed and snecked rubble, ashlar dressings (red ashlar dressings to hall); moulded ashlar mullions.
NARTHEX: 2-stage 3-bay arthex as rectangular projection masking liturgical W end to SE; angle buttresses with octagonal pinnacled turrets; tall ground floor blank except for 3 narrow arrowslit windows; blind arcading of lancets with moulded arches and colonnettes to gallery, every 3 lancets divided by buttresses with central lancets with inset window; cill course and parapet with gablet-capped pinnacles above. ENTRANCE PORCH: tall gabled porch to left of narthex opening to SW flanked by buttresses; pointed-arch doorway to Montpelier Park with clustered colonettes to chamfered reveals and moulded arch; open timber roof with corbels inside; relieving arch over inner doorway, wide framed-and-lined timber double door; decorative cast-iron gates. STAIR BLOCK: low polygonal stair block to NE of narthex with lancet stair windows and parapet; slightly advanced round-arched doorway to Montpelier with bracketted ashlar dentilled roof, moulded arch and carved inscription in tympanum.
NAVE: gabled projecting liturgical E end to NW with 2 tall lancet windows to chancel and oculus in gablehead, gablet skews, stone cross finial above; narrow side aisles flanking with lancet windows and lean-to roof; clerestorey consisting of tripartite lancet windows (4 to NE, 5 to SW); rose window with distinctive tracery in SE gable wall, stone cross finial above.
TRANSEPT AND CHAPEL: low gabled transept to NE with paired lancets in end gable. Rectangular-plan gabled side chapel to SW corner; angle buttresses; cornice and parapet with pinnacles; oculus with curvilinear tracery and hoodmould in NW gable, stone cross finial above; 2 4-light pointed-arch windows with tracery and hoodmoulds divided by buttress to SW; pointed-arch doorway in porch set obliquely in re-entrant angle formed with side aisle, roll-moulded with hoodmould.
HALL WITH LINKING PORCH: gabled, rectangular-plan set alongside NW; stepped tripartite window under pointed-arch hoodmould in SW gable, central 2-light window, plain stone cross finial above; stepped tripartite window with cusped heads in NE gable. Link to main church with round-arched doorway to Montpelier Park with nook-shaft and hoodmould, 1 rectangular and 1 small bipartite window to right of doorway; small parapet. Steeply pitched tall roof, green slates to church, black slates to hall, lead flashings, 5 small gablet roof vents to each pitch; single stack to NE of nave.
INTERIOR: rubble with ashlar dressings, outer walls rendered; narrow aisles; pointed arch arcade with octagonal stone piers; plain clerestorey; elaborate crown-post rimber roof with decoratively carved wallplate; timber dado to aisles and west wall, arcade wall stugged rubble; single slender colonnettes with annulets rising from foliate corbels at arcade; arcade of 3 pointed-arch openings to gallery in W wall; square-headed roll-moulded doors to vestibule in centre of W wall and in aisle ends; moulded chancel arch with single shaft rising from plain corbel. Plain chancel with elaborately carved stone reredos in Decorated style; 2 organ chambers in arches on each side with Decorated Gothic carves timber bases (Morgan & Smith, 1900). Stained glass by C E Kempe in E wall (dated 1899, Christ in Majesty, scenes from the crucufuxion and resurrection); rose window of SW chapel also by Kempe (Trinity). Low rubble boundary wall with saddleback coping, short gatepiers.
The congregation has originally used an iron church which had been re-erected for them in Bruntsfield Gardens in 1890. The present church was built at the cost of $11.936 and opened in 1900. Allegedly, the internal arrangement and design was much influenced by Henry J Wotherspoon, a notable liturgiolist, who was minister at St Oswald's from 1894-1923. Now used by the drama department of Boroughmuir High School.
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