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Summary

Description

Pugin and Pugin, 1904-5. Large, 8-bay, basilican-plan Gothic parish church with canted chancel, lean-to side aisles, bow-ended baptistery/stair tower at S end of W side aisle, traceried windows and roughly square-plan presbytery attached by link corridor to W of church. Squared, coursed, bull-faced cream sandstone with polished ashlar dressings; snecked sandstone to presbytery.

CHURCH: base course; ashlar cill band to clerestory windows; eaves course. Bull-faced relieving arches over all windows; predominantly cusped 2- and 3- light windows, in depressed-arch margins with traceried tops and projecting sloping cills at ground; 2- and 3- light cusped windows in rectangular margins to clerestory; clerestory bays divided by pilaster buttresses. Principal elevation to S gable: central 2-leaf timber-boarded door with depressed-arch architrave in slightly projecting porch with roll-moulded, pointed-arch entrance and chamfered corners; late 20th century steps to door; bipartite windows flanking to each side; large hoodmoulded, traceried window above entrance; small window to gable apex. Secondary entrances with same detailing as first to left and right returns. Regular fenestration to E; baptistery, link corridor and sacristy outshot from W aisle. 3 tall bipartite traceried windows to N (chancel).

Leaded lights, many with stained glass. Ashlar-coped skews with gableted ends; stone cross-finial to S gable and metal cross-finial to N end. Grey slate with decorative grey ridge tiles. Cast-iron rainwater goods with round hoppers and decorative brackets.

INTERIOR: 6-bay nave with pointed-arch arcades to aisles resting on octagonal sandstone columns; arch-braced kingpost roof supported on bracket corbels. Apsidial chancel with stained glass windows, 1948 by John Hardman Co. Very decorative Carrara marble High Altar and eredos with Gothic detailing and Byzantine-style mosaic panels; decorative canopies over central tabernacle, and statues of Saints Andrew and Patrick. Marble lectern, credence table, sedile (priest's chair), font and altar steps. Marble side altars to the Sacred Heart and Our Lady with mosaic panels; marble altar rails to sides altars with small brass gates. Narthex with glazed screen and half-glazed doors; organ gallery over.

PRESBYTERY: circa 1902. Roughly square-plan gabled house with piend-roofed service outshot to rear. Base course and eaves cornice. Predominantly bipartite and tripartite transomed, mullioned windows; depressed-arched lights to S (front) elevation. 2-leaf timber-panelled front door in stop-chamfered, depressed-arch, hoodmoulded architrave; slightly advanced bay to left with tripartite windows; bipartite windows to right. Fenestration roughly arranged in bays to W and N elevations. Flat-roofed side lobby with timber panelled door, transomed window and parapet outshot from E elevation below staircase window. Glazed link corridor extending from behind lobby.

INTERIOR: some original fireplaces; decorative cornicing and timber panelled interior doors throughout. Timber staircase with turned balustrade and decorative newel posts. Double-glazed timber sash and case windows. Rendered gablehead and wallhead stacks with red clay cans. Ashlar-coped skews. Red clay cans.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. The church is a good and little-altered example of the work of the firm Pugin and Pugin of Westminster for the Diocese of Glasgow (see below).

Following the re-creation of the Catholic Hierarchy in Scotland in 1878 there was an increase in church building, especially in the archdiocese of Glasgow, where the Catholic population had expanded rapidly due to an influx of Irish immigrants. The majority of the new churches built between about 1880 and 1904 were designed by the architect Peter Paul Pugin, the main practitioner in the firm Pugin & Pugin. Peter Paul Pugin was the youngest son of AWN Pugin. His elder half-brother, Cuthbert, was also a partner in the firm, but retired in about 1880. After Peter Paul's death in 1904 the practice was continued by his nephew, Sebastian Pugin Powell. The plans for St Patrick's were completed by the middle of March 1904, the same month that Peter Paul Pugin died. It is therefore quite likely that St Patrick's is principally the work of Sebastian Pugin Powell, although the style of both the church and presbytery is very similar to other churches by Peter Paul.

Pugin and Pugin churches tend to be very similar in both style and layout. The plan is characterised by a long nave with clear views to a relatively shallow chancel, side aisles terminating with side altars flanking the chancel, and a narthex at the entrance end with an organ gallery above. The entrance elevation usually faced the busiest street, in order to minimise noise disturbance, although since St in order to minimise noise disturbance, although since St Patrick's is set back from the road, this precaution wasn't so necessary in this case.

The history of the building of the church is very well documented in the centenary booklet published by the church, which includes excerpts from the local newspaper, old photographs and a list of the main contractors. The site for the church was purchased in 1899 and the presbytery was built at some point between this date and the commencement of the building of the church in 1904. There is no doubt that the presbytery was designed by Pugin and Pugin as it is almost identical to others by the firm (for example the one at Mossend, which also has exactly the same stair balusters). The first sod was cut on St Patrick's day in 1904 and the building of the church was completed 14 months later. The principal contractor was John Gilfillan, a prominent local builder. The church was built in local Braehead sandstone, which was produced as a by-product from the local coal pits. St Patrick's was the first Pugin and Pugin church for over a decade to be built of anything other than red sandstone. The church was sandblasted in the early 1990s, which has restored the stone to its original colour, but also left it rather scarred. The High Altar was purchased in 1932, and was probably made to a Pugin and Pugin design. The side altars were installed in about 1939. The chancel stained glass was inserted in about 1948; that in the baptistery probably dates from about 1965; the West window was done in 1987.

A large gabled school building, which is roughly contemporary with the church, stands immediately to the E of the church. It has been rather altered with non-traditional plastic windows and a large addition to the rear.

References

Bibliography

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