Description

Steel and Balfour, Glasgow 1897-99. 5-bay, gabled and buttressed Scots Gothic church, situated on prominent corner site with integral single-bay, 2-storey hall to W. Bull-faced red sandstone with smooth buttresses and margins. Base course, band courses, hoodmoulding. Elevations to N and S with large, 2-light tracery windows with stone mullions and transoms. Other lancet windows to gables. Polygonal, finialled fleche to roof. S elevation with buttresses breaking eaves and advanced single-storey gabled section to far right.

MAIN ELEVATION TO E (KINNOULL STREET): Symmetrical. Part crow-stepped gable. Central 2-leaf timber entrance door with multi-pane glazing above in deep-set moulded doorway with cross finial at apex. Large, 6-light geometric-tracery window above. Lancet window openings to ground. 3-light arcaded window openings to upper section of outer bays with colonettes. Pinnacled corner buttresses.

CHURCH HALL: internally linked to church. Timber entrance door to right. 3-light window opening to ground with stone mullions and transoms. 3-light tracery window to upper storey. Ball finialled corner buttresses.

Predominantly leaded clear glass to windows. Green slates with red ridge tiles.

INTERIOR: (seen, 2009). Fine original decorative scheme. Vaulted ceiling to aisles with arches springing from decorative corbels. Timber pews and panelled horseshoe gallery. Cast-iron columns; those at gallery level with decorated foliage capitals. Decorative timber pulpit with stairs and en suite organ case. Panelled timber doors. Stone staircases with decorative metal balusters and timber banisters.

Statement of Interest

Place of worship in use as such. This is a fine, well-decorated red sandstone church on a prominent corner site and with a good, largely unaltered interior. The exterior of the building has a large number of Scots Gothic details including tracery windows, a crow-stepped gable and tall buttresses. The decoration is well-detailed and the church is a significant part of the streetscape in this area of Perth. The interior is particularly fine and the timber pews, gallery and pulpit create a cohesive decorative scheme.

Steele and Balfour was a Glasgow-based architectural practice, working from 1886-1902. Little is known of Henry Bell Wesley Steele, but Andrew Balfour had been an assistant in the office of John Burnet & Sons. They designed a number of churches, mainly in the West of Scotland. The partnership became more widely known after winning the competition for Largs Parish Church (see separate listing).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Perth Congregational Church at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17852734

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

• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)