Description

John Bryce, 1880-82. Early English cruciform church with tower and spire (100? high). Squared and snecked bull-faced sandstone; base course; string courses; battered buttresses. Plate tracery. Hoodmoulds and foliate labelstops. Chamfered reveals to pointed arch openings.

E (ENTRANCE ELEVATION): tower to right (see below); broad door to centre of gabled elevation with carved bands to arch-surround and carved inscription (Nec tamen consumebatur) and burning bush to arch-head; 2-leaf boarded doors with decorative iron hinges; small lights flanking. Stepped tripartite window above,

centre light 2-light with multi-foil above. Return elevation of gabled baptistery and aisles to left, buttressed with small light.

TOWER: 3-stage tower with tall stone spire. slender lancets to each face of 1st stage, Roman numeralled clocks (Robert Bryson & Sons, Edinburgh) to 2 faces of 2nd stage in hoodmoulded recesses, 3rd stage battered with paired louvred lancets and carved wallhead frieze, all buttress flanked. Splayfoot spire with polygonal pinnacles rising from corner splays, with blind arrowlist to each face and polygonal caps; gabled lucarnes with plate tracery and louvring to each side.

N AND S ELEVATIONS: paired lancets to each centre bay with dividing buttresses. Gabled transepts advanced to outer W bays with windows of 3-light plate tracery, quatrefoils in gablehead, doors on return to E by re-entrant

angles. Tower to outer left (E) bay of N elevation, gabled baptistery bay with 2-light window to outer right of S elevation. Modern extension Session House, 1967, to SW.

W ELEVATION: broad gable to centre with cusped wheel window above piend and platform single storey projecting Vestry.

Leaded glazing (see Interior). Graded grey slate roofs, stone ridges. Stone stack to skew of rear gable. Diminutive gabled timber ventilators to side pitches. Stone cross finials to most gableheads. INTERIOR: aisles screened by pointed arch arcade of columns with annulets and carved foliate capitals. Open timber roof with braces resting on stone corbels. Fleur-de-lys finialled stall ends. Polygonal timber pulpit. Stone font, William Birnie Rhind, of angel kneeling bearing basin. Organ with 2 sets of pipes flanking wheel window. Stained glass: principal wheel window, James Ballantine & Son, Edinburgh; windows originally also by Kier of St Vincent Street,

Glasgow, and Clayton & Bell, London; modern ?dal de verre? window in Session House representing fishes (authority) by Sadie Maclennan.

RAILINGS, BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: decorative wrought-iron railings and 2-leaf gates. Square section gatepiers with chamfered angles and low pyramidal caps. Low rubble boundary walls with ashlar coping. Picket fence to rear.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. The church was built at a cost of ?7,000 to seat 600 people, replacing the earlier church to the north (listed separately as church hall) which proved too small. It was built in memory of Miss Elizabeth (?Ella?) Constance Lindsay Orr Ewing, commissioned and funded by her father, Archibald Orr Ewing of Ballikinrain, MP for Dumbarton (later knighted). Ella died when still a girl and was remembered for her particular piety and acts of charity. The foundation stone was laid on 13th November 1880. Bryce?s father, David Bryce, was architect of Ballikinrain, and this almost certainly led to the choice of John Bryce for the church. The old Manse lies to the SW and is listed separately.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17838993

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

• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)