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Summary

Description

Sydney Mitchell and Wilson, 1904. Church in original and eclectic style with elements of northern European Gothic, Arts and Crafts and Scots vernacular styles prominent. Vaguely cruciform and quasi-symmetrical, with prominent tower and spire, vestry to east and aisle to west at rear. Variegated random rubble with rough dressings, chamfered ashlar round main windows. Modern church hall adjoining (1953).

Tower (north elevation): saddleback tower, gabled east to west with ashlar skews and rolled skewputts, surmounted by a spirelet comprised of a louvred octagonal base and a slate roof, bulbous then pointed. The north side has a carved plaque in the lower wall and a large three-light Gothic window above with perpendicular tracery within a rounded arch with hoodmould decoration above. The west and east sides both have small twin windows in their gableheads with simple tracery and carving. The east side has a two-light window at ground floor level, the west side has a small single window in the lower left bay.

North elevation (behind the tower): symmetrical with the tower positioned centrally. Each side has a two-light window to the ground floor and twin windows to the upper level, with simple tracery and carving with the outer openings foreshortened.

East elevation: forward section in five bays divided by four raked stone buttresses. The entrance door is in the northernmost bay. It is a two-leaf, vertically-boarded door with large and boldly curved iron hinges. There is a three-light window in the next bay, other bays are blank. The eastern roof pitch has three, broad swept dormers with quadripartite glazing and perpendicular timber tracery.

Rear section advanced, forming a vestry with an open entrance porch, doors to church, vestry and cellar. One small window to vestry and one smaller opening to cellar.

West elevation: same as the east elevation, but with three buttresses and two swept dormers in the forward section. A piended aisle projects at right angles to the rear with a tripartite window facing north and a door to the west linking to the later church hall.

South elevation: main section is symmetrical, with two-light windows to the ground floor. There is a large Gothic window in the gablehead, five-sectioned with perpendicular tracery beneath a rounded arch with hoodmould decoration above. The vestry projects to the east with one small window.

The windows are predominantly fixed with leaded diamond panes, some stained glass. Main roof and tower gabled, vestry roof piended, covered in graded light-grey slates. There is one tall stepped chimneystack to the rear of the vestry with two small cans.

Interior: The church has an exceptional interior. Broad interior spanned by open timber roof of seven bays, with tie beams, arcades and arched braces, all stencilled with symbolic designs in blue on cream and vice-versa. North (front) end with vestibule and gallery landing above screened off with diamond panes. Gallery above in two bays, supported on timber posts continuing upwards as twisted columns to roof. Main body of church in four bays with two aisles. Southernmost bay forms the chancel with a central communion table below a semicircular vault with red and cream stencilling, flanked by veils of delicate loop tracery above pulpit (to east) and choir seating (to west). West aisle (or transept) roofed around central timber post. Furnishings of high quality and mostly original. There are three windows in stained glass. The west window ("except the Lord build the house") 1922 by Margaret Kemp. The east window by Margaret Chilton and the east dormer window (New Testament), 1949 by John Blyth.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Built as a United Free Church, it is first shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1906.

The designs by Sidney Mitchell and Wilson are thought to have evolved considerably as work progressed. The west aisle, for example, was added as an amendment to accommodate a recent influx of coalminers to the parish. There is an anecdote regarding the stencilled paintwork. The congregation, who largely funded the work, were mostly of the fishing community, and when the building reached the stage of final decoration, the elders were away for the season fishing out of Yarmouth. The designers were left with a free hand, and, on the return of the fishermen, there was an outcry from many over the perceived irreverence of the work, to the extent that the decoration was nearly painted over. The decoration is in fact symbolic of the Old and New Testaments and of contemporary Church history and is explained in the church's booklet.

The plaque on the front of the Tower is inscribed "To the Glory of God This Stone Was Laid/By Grace Wood 13th February 1904". Mrs Wood was granddaughter of the Reverend Dr Thomas Chalmers, who led the founding of the Free Church in the Disruption of 1843. Although the bulk of the local congregation adhered to the Free Church, they were evicted from the Old Parish Church (see separate listing, LB23028) in 1849, soon building a new church in School Lane. This proved inadequate by the 1890s and fundraising enabled the present church to be constructed in 1904, by which time (in 1900) the Free Church had united with the United Presbyterian Church to form the Cockenzie United Free Church. This in turn re-united with the established Church of Scotland in 1929, when the building was renamed in honour of Thomas Chalmers.

Sydney Mitchell greatly extended a former church in Gullane in 1908 for another Free Church (now hall, LB1363) The interior woodwork here is of exceptional quality with stencilling.

Statutory address and listed building record revised in 2025. Previously listed as EDINBURGH ROAD, CHALMERS MEMORIAL CHURCH, CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

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