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Summary

Description

James Ingram, 1836. Rectangular plan, Perpendicular Gothic, 6-bay church with centrally placed 4-stage tower to N gable. Pink sandstone with base and string course. Angle, diagonal and octagonal clasping buttresses.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: central 2-leaf, gothic panelled door to ground, recessed under pointed arch with moulded reveals and crocketed, ogival hood-mould. Tower breaking gablehead: tall window with reticulated tracery set under square-panelled head; clock in lozenge panel above; louvered opening with panel tracery and ogival hood-mould in upper stage; battlemented parapet with square angle pinnacles. Battlemented gable flanking tower with tall, panel-traceried windows below; octagonal, blind panelled, terminal buttresses with crocketed and finialled caps.

E ELEVATION: 5 similarly traceried windows; timber gothic door to bay 6 with hood-mould and blind lancets above.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: 3 geometric traceried windows with central window tallest; gablehead finial removed, diagonally placed angle buttress & finials remain; later single storey addition present.

W ELEVATION: 5 similarly traceried windows; timber gothic door to bay 1 with hood-mould and blind lancets above.

Stained glass of square quarry to most windows. Piended grey slate roof with lead flashings. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: gothic revival interior with original lectern & organ.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. The architect was local man James Ingram, who planned many buildings within Kilmarnock during the mid-late 19th century. This was his first major piece of work. He was later in practise with his son Robert Samson Ingram at 114 King Street. The church dates from 1836 and cost ?5000 including the tower. It was built primarily as a chapel of ease and contained 1736 sittings. The Commissioner's Report said "It is intended to apply to the presbytery to assign a parochial district to it, when an endowment is got for a minister." It was finally constituted a quoad sacra church in 1862. Internally, the organ cost ?350 and was a gift from John Gilmour, Esq. of Elmbank House (which was later demolished to provide land for the Dick Institute). Not long after the church opened, rumours began to circulate with regard to the safety of the structure. The building is wide and it was assumed the roof was too heavy and wide to be supported properly. Repair and strengthening work was carried out to the centre, which fuelled rumours of an imminent structural collapse. One Sunday during a service conducted by Rev. David Strong, a gale sent a tree crashing into a sidewall of the church and the main doors burst open with the storm. The congregation panicked, especially as someone imagined they saw smoke in the session house and, like the Laigh Kirk 35 years previously, a stampede occurred. Multiple deaths were averted due to Rev. Strong's pulpit address urging calm. No injuries were reported (unlike the Laigh Kirk where 30 people died) and the structure still survives a century and a half later.

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