Description

William Leiper (Melvin and Leiper), won in competition, 1865-66. Normandy Gothic church, steeple 195ft (60m). Nave, aisles, chancel, transeptal galleries, 4-stage tower, spire. Coursed rubble with ashlar dressings. Buttressed. Set on plinth.

Entrance front: arched, gabletted, moulded doorway with colonettes, at base of tower. Flanking tripartite aisle windows with geometrical tracery.

Elevation to E: ground floor plate tracery windows with hoodmoulds separated by buttresses, 5 gabletted gallery windows above with geometrical tracery; raked cill band; bipartite pointed window in S bay with central colonette and responds and zig-zag hoodmould, pointed arched entrance with sculpted tympanum.

Tower: 2nd stage plate tracery, 3rd stage blind arcade with tall colonettes, 4th stage bellcote with linked bipartite plate traceried openings, spire with angle lucarnes and plate-traceried openings, tall stone spire. Low, 2-storey halls and offices to rear at N; linking section with lancets in arches at ground floor. N office section with 2-storey polygonal attached turret at NW corner. Hipped roofs with half dormers.

Interior: very wide span church, galleried on cast-iron columns, cusped, carved balcony front. Plate-traceried W rose window. Arcaded, canopied pulpit with parapet, bowed in centre with continuous dwarf columns. Columned stair screens to left and right of vestibule. Stained glass by Daniel Cottier, traces of original stencil decorative scheme.

Statement of Interest

Built in 1865-6 as a United Presbyterian church this was the first major commission for the important architect William Leiper. Designed in a Normandy Gothic style, it has a remarkably striking steeple and it also has a very high quality interior with painted decoration and stained glass by the artist Daniel Cottier. It was converted by the Four Acres Charitable Trust from 1989 into the Cottier Theatre with a performance venue in the church and café/bar in the hall and operated from 1994 to 2004 when a restoration programme was begun. No longer a place of worship.

References from previous list description: Gomme and Walker, 1968, p 291. Information by courtesy of Buildings of Scotland Research Unit. Williamson, Riches and Higgs, GLASGOW (1990) p356.

List description updated as part of the Theatres Thematic Study 2010.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17567935

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

• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)