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Summary

Description

T L Watson, 1880. Nave and aisle, Romanesque church with prominent, diaper-decorated central advanced pedimented basilica entrance bay and polygonal side apses. Ashlar with chanelled rustication to ground at street elevation. Base course, moulded band courses, corbelled cornice, parapet. Round-arched window openings to clerestory.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: ENTRANCE ELEVATION TO N: stairs lead to flat-roofed port-cochere type porch with round-arched doorway with Corinthian colonnettes and semicircular pattern carving above. Corner piers with inset panels with carved foliage designs and pilaster angle buttresses. Pedimented full height bay behind with central, 3 round-arched windows with Corinthian engaged columns. Diaper ornamentation to gable above and indented corbelling under parapet. Turreted clasping buttresses. Cross to apex. Flanking polygonal side apses with round-arched window openings and indented corbelled to cornice.

Rear (S) with round-arched window arcade to ground.

INTERIOR: (seen 2009). 5-aisled bays with panelled timber, horseshoe gallery supported by cast-iron columns. Barrel vaulted ceiling. Round-arched arcades separate nave and aisles, carried on slender columns with foliate capitals. Domed vaults to aisles bays. Timber pews to aisles and gallery. Timber communion table, pulpit and organ case.

FORMER CHURCH SESSION HOUSE TO REAR (S): 2-storey, 3-bay Classical former Session House. Tooled sandstone with ashlar margins. Band course, cornice. Timber entrance door to East elevation with consoled cornice. Windows with side lights to both storeys at North elevation with blocking course above.

Interior: some decorative plasterwork cornicing, simple fire surrounds and timber shutters.

Statement of Special Interest

Place of Worship in use as such. This is an imposing, well-detailed church in an unusual Romanesque style with a particularly fine interior. The street elevation has intricate carved detailing which gives it a significant presence in this area of the town. The interior is notable for its fine timber horseshoe gallery and domed vaults to the side aisles.

The former session house to the rear is depicted on the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey Map of 1900 and is a good example of a little externally altered Classical church building.

Built originally as a United Presbyterian Church, this church replaced a previous one on the same site. It was originally to be in a Classical style but Thomas Lennox Watson won the competition with this design. The church was built to hold 1200 people and cost £7000. In 1887 an organ was installed and the choir positioned in front of pulpit. In 1900, the Union of the United Presbyterian Church and the Free Church became the United Free Church and in 1929, this amalgamated with the Church of Scotland. The church is now Church of Scotland. The sanctuary was refurbished in 1980 and in 1985, the 1985 the church joined with St Leonard's Parish Church.

Thomas Lennox Watson (1850-1920) was a Glasgow architect whose main work appears mainly in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. His work includes other UP churches. He designed in a variety of styles.

List description updated as part of Perth Burgh Resurvey, 2010.

References

Bibliography

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