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Summary

Description

Reginald Fairlie, 1934. 5-bay, rectangular-plan, gabled church with bowed chancel to south. Red sandstone rubble with yellow ashlar margins. Eaves course, Blocked, plain architraves to openings. Small semicircular arched windows. Coped skews and skewputts. The presbytery and church hall dating to around 1870 to southwest of church were later converted to a coach house to chapel around 1883 and are not considered of special interest in listing terms.

E (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 5-bay, 5 windows, fenestration compressed towards centre. Advanced, gabled porch to outer right; 2-leaf, boarded timber, semicircular-arched door to centre, small windows to returns.

W (REAR) ELEVATION: 5-bay, 5 windows, fenestration compressed towards centre. Advanced gabled rear porch to outer right, entrance to left return. Advanced, gabled boiler house to outer left, door to centre, tall stack abutting church nave wall to rear.

N (GABLE END) ELEVATION: 3-light, semicircular arched stained glass window. Stone cross finial to apex of gable.

S (GABLE END) ELEVATION: advanced, bowed chancel to centre; corbelled semicircular arched niche to centre, small windows to returns. Stone cross finial to apex of gable.

Diamond leaded windows. Grey slates, lead flashing, Cast iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: plain, white rendered open nave with deep window recesses. Large, semicircular arch opening to south chancel, flanked by impost height exposed stonework, simple pilasters supporting exposed stonework arch ring. Impost height string course to bowed chancel. Modern stained glass commemorating the 1996 Dunblane Primary School tragedy to north end. Exposed tie beam, timber roof structure with carved timber corbels.

BOUNDARY WALL: low, coped wall, narrow squared red sandstone courses, terminating in square-plan piers and high arced, quadrant walls flanking entrance to church. Coped, rubble wall to abutting church hall to rear.

Statement of Special Interest

Place of worship in use as such.

The church was designed by the eminent Edinburgh architect Reginald Fairlie and is a good example of the simple Romanesque style church which Fairlie favoured for many of his church commissions. Fairlie was committed to good workmanship and good materials where the budget allowed, as is the case with this church.

Fairlie's church was financed by the Stirlings of Keir (see separate listing for Keir House). The family converted to Catholicism on the marriage of Sir Archibald Stirling to the catholic Lady Lovat of Morar. Lady Lovat financed the church as a memorial to her husband raising funds through the sale of an El Greco painting to the National Gallery, London. All materials, stone, slates and timber, used in the construction were from the Keir estate. Statuary to niches of church and church hall were added in 2000.

The first Catholic chapel on this site was a converted hayloft. The villa (now the presbytery) and coachhouse (now the church hall) had been built in the 1860s or 1870s. They were acquired by the Catholic Church and converted to presbytery and chapel in 1882 at the instigation of Father Paul MacLachlan, priest at Doune, probably with funds from the Stirlings of Keir or other wealthy members of his Doune congregation. This church was initially known as SS John and Blane's RC Church.

Reginald Fairlie (1883-1952) trained under Robert Stodart Lorimer and in 1909, he set up his own practice at 7 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh. His ethos was based on nationalism, traditionalism and religion. He himself was a committed Roman Catholic and undertook many commissions for the Catholic Church. He also carried out a number of country house renovations, estate lodges although churches formed the largest part of his practice. Fairlie, with his religious belief, designed churches as workable environments and decorative structures secondly. The bulk of his 1920's church work was carried out on limited funds resulting in designs for thrifty Romanesque churches which were executed in concrete. He still favoured a rustic, handcrafted traditional church where funds allowed but these were few and far between. By the 1930s, Fairlie adapted his designs to the clean lines of modernism but did not fully commit as some younger designers, like Jack Coia. Fairlie's best known works are the National Library of Scotland and Fort Augustus Abbey Church, but the smaller less ostentatious churches form the largest group in his oeuvre.

Presbytery and church hall were not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest at the time of the review in 2015.

Statutory address and listed building record revised in 2015. Previously listed as 'Clarendon Place, Church of the Holy Family, Roman Catholic Church, Including Presbytery, Church Hall and Boundary Wall'.

References

Bibliography

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