Description

Hippolyte Jean Blanc, dated 1875. Cruciform-plan Early English Gothic church with shallow transepts, 5-sided apse and ambulatory, N tower and tall ashlar spire, church hall in basement to rear; cream sandstone, squared and snecked rubble with ashlar dressings; moulded pointed-arch windows mostly with ashlar mullions and quatre- or cinquefoil plate tracery; slender shafts and colonnettes with stiff-leaf capitals; base course; off-set gablet-capped buttresses; sloping cills; moulded eaves course; ashlar mullioned rectangular basement windows with cusped heads and ornamental cast-iron grilles. TOWER: set in re-entrant angle between apse and transept; 3-stages; set-back buttresses; octagonal stairtower with arrowslit windows on NW angle; main entance porch to E comprised of pointed-arch doorway of 3 orders in gabled panel, shafts with annulets in jambs, shouldered-arch panelled door, frieze of blind roundels to lintel, tympanum with stepped 3-light blind arcading, trefoil oculus in gablehead; shouldered-arch doorway to stairtower to W with stone forestair and ashlar balustrade. Arrowslit windows at 2nd stage. 3rd stage: tripartite windows to all sides, central mullioned light with cinquefoil and pierced spandrels, clustered shafts, blind outer lights of slender pointed arches, cill band of blind roundels. Top stage: octagonal spire, flying buttresses to ornate ashlar corner pinnacles with niches and blind arcading to bases and polygonal ashlar caps, 4 tall narrow ashlar louvred lucarness, 2 string courses with blind roundels and gablets.

NAVE: Gabled W end wall with pointed-arch entrance door at basement level flanked by small windows, bipartite window to left, rose window with foiled tracery above, small stepped tripartite lancet window in gablehead, shouldered base to stack to right, stone finial. 4-bay nave walls, 4 2-light pointed arch windows with cinquefoils and pierced spandrels divided by buttresses to each side, moulded string course rising to hoodmould, N side of nave gabled porch with stone forestair and ashlar balustrade in westermost bay, pointed-arch doorway. TRANSEPTS: gabled N and S transepts with 3 narrow lancets at ground floor level, moulded string course rising as hoodmould above, rose window in recessed moulded pointed-arch panel in gablehead with sloping cill and colonnettes, crocketted finial to S transept.

CHANCEL AND APSE: at E end 5-bay apse abutted at ground by 5-bay projecting lean-to ambulatory with gablet-capped flying buttresses and cinquefoil oculi with colonnettes and stepped hoodmoulds; apse comprised of 5 finialled gables with 2-light windows with colonnette mullions and trefoil and cinquefoil geometrical tracery, divided by buttresses with pinnacles and gargoyles; chancel abutted at ground by 3-bay single storey lean-to vestry with gabled pointed-arch entrance porch with corbelled gabled ashlar canopy, bipartite window with trefoil carving above and tapering shouldered squat wallhead stack; 3 finialled gables with cinquefoil traceried windows divided by buttresses with pinnacles and gargoyles to chancel above.

Steep Scottish slate roof, large unbroken expanse with red ridge tiles; coped skews, gablet-capped skewputts, moulded eaves gutters and gutterheads.

INTERIOR: nave and transepts painted; chancel and apse ashlar; aisleless nave with timber hammerbeam roof springing from corbelled wall shafts, with arched (collar) braces pierced with trefoils, carved hammerbeams and original decoration to rafters; string course rising to hoodmould over nave windows; moulded chancel arch springing from corbelled colonnettes with stiff-leaf capitals; fully tiled floor; original timber pews. Chancel and apse: timber rib-vault; stiff-leaf string course above arcade; vault shafts with stiff leaf capitals dividing bays; 2 wide arches in westermost bays, organ chamber to left, followed by 2 trefoil-headed doors with shafts and heads of plate tracery; apse comprised of pointed-arch arcade with compound piers and rich stiff-leaf capitals, foliage label-stops, carved diaper work to spandrels; clerestory with tall 2-light windwos rising into timber rib-vault; original decorative painting scheme to arches, corbels and some capitals, walls of western bays with painted roundels and figures of saints under stencilled arcading, stencilled floral scrolls. Extensive stained glass scheme by Ballantine (life of Christ) in chancel and nave, W rose window (Christ as teacher) by A E Borthwick, 1926. Fittings: carved timber choir stalls and transept screen; carved timber chancel screen (now moved) on marble base, designed by Blanc and executed by Thomas Beveridge; original font and pulpit, elaborately carved with angels and inset with marble balls. Organ by Peter Conacher, 1875, rebuilt by C & F Hamilton, 1902, and Ronald L Smith, 1971.

BOUNDARY WALLS; GATES AND GATEPIERS: low rubble boundary walls, octagonal ashlar gatepiers with cusped coping and band of blind roundels, cast-iron railings with fleur-de-lis-heads.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17809530

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

• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5