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Summary

Description

J W Smith, 1869, with later belfry stage and spire by Peddie and Kinnear, 1873. T-plan with later halls and offices adjoining to W. Early English Gothic church with inventive interior, E gable to road, tower to NE, triple gabled transepts to N and S. Bull-faced stone-cleaned cream sandstone with polished ashlar dressings; base course, string course, buttresses and finials to gables. Red and cream structural polychrome to openings on E elevation and base of tower.

E ELEVATION: to Gilmerton Road. TOWER: to right, square 3-stage buttressed tower, with steps to doorway at base with gabled surround, timber boarded door. Small window lighting stair above. Later (1873) 2nd and 3rd stages with pair of pointed-arched, louvred belfry windows to each elevation, corbel table to wallheads, stone octagonal broached spire above with poppyhead finial and small lucarnes. Gable to left with 3 tall, plate-traceried lancets, hoodmoulds with uncarved block stops. Small trefoil-headed ventilator opening to gablehead with moulded cill course set in decorative cusped arch with dwarf engaged red stone columns with foliate capitals. Second

pointed arch-headed doorway in gabled aisle to left, string course stepped over, small blind oculus above.

N & S ELEVATIONS: plain, tall single lancet windows lighting nave, 3 smaller lancets to gabled side transepts.

Grey slates, 3 slated triangular louvred ventilators to main roof on each slope. Ashlar finial to E, ashlar stack to W gable.

INTERIOR: raked floor, central block of timber pews, white painted walls. Ornate arch-braced timber roof, radial bosses with star plate tracery springing from short ashlar colonnettes with heavily carved foliate capitals, carried on moulded corbels, corbelled foliate caps only at transepts. Later organ centred on W wall in arched surround with 5 quatrefoil and multifoil windows above, framed by timber bosses of roof. Triple arcaded transepts with stone colonnade of pointed arches, diamond windows to clerestorey and open timber roof.

CHURCH HALL: to W, later 19th century single storey hall adjoining at right angles to NW, squared and coursed sandstone with cream ashlar dressings. Timber boarded interior. Plain, early 20th century 2-storey wing of offices adjoining to SW, red coursed sandstone, 9-pane timber windows with top-hopper, timber barge boards. Grey slates.

WALLS AND GATEPIERS: coursed rubble, ashlar coped walls with railings to Claverhouse Drive and Gilmerton Road, rubble-coped rubble walls to Mount Vernon Road. 2 pairs of ashlar Gatepiers to Gilmerton Road with gablet ashlar caps, cast-iron gates.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Built as a Free Church, the spire is prominent in views travelling South along Gilmerton Road. The plain exterior belies the exuberance of the remarkable timber roofed interior.

References

Bibliography

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