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Summary

Description

Reginald Fairlie, 1924. Altar, 1938. Romanesque style, rectangular-plan aisless church with 8-bay nave, side chapels and SE link to presbytery; good stained glass. Red brick and concrete blockwork. Chamfered string/cill course and mutuled eaves course. Round and segmental-headed openings; voussoirs.

NE (METHIL BRAE) ELEVATION: cross-finialled gable with full-width tiled loggia (square-plan columns and square-headed arcade), full-height bipartite window to centre with 2-leaf boarded timber doors in flanking bays. 3 small round-headed windows at 2nd stage.

SE (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: porch to outer right bay with moulded round-headed doorcase and deep-set 2-leaf boarded timber door, decorative wrought-iron hinges, decoratively-astragalled semicircular fanlight and small window on return to right. 4 centre bays with stone cross (see Notes) memorial to centre at ground and segmental-headed tripartite window to each bay at 2nd stage. Lower, projecting, piended bay to outer left with 4 small round-headed windows (grouped 3-1) and segmental-headed tripartite window on return to right; presbytery link, door and small window to projecting face and 3 small round-headed windows on return to left. Penultimate bay to left with segmental-headed window to side chapel under sloping roof, and narrow round-headed tripartite window to outer left.

NW ELEVATION: 3 segmental-headed windows under projecting sloping roof to right of centre, narrow round-headed tripartite to outer right, 4 segmental-headed windows to left with pitch-roofed side chapel beyond.

SW ELEVATION: blank gabled elevation with stone-cross finial.

Some small-pane clear glazing (stained glass see below). Red tiles. Ashlar-coped skews.

INTERIOR: nave with dividing buttresses and fixed timber pews, arcading to flanking transeptal chapels, altar rail with turned balusters and timber panelled chancel with raised marble altar and piscina. NW transept with gothic-style carved altar and baldacchino with painted panels flanking statue of Christ. SE transept (Lady Chapel) with similarly detailed altar and statue of Our Lady.

Stained glass includes Lady Chapel with Holy Family and Nativity scenes signed by John Blyth (see Notes). NW transept with triptych style scenes, Mary with Jesus flanked by angels, and saints (undergoing repair 1998). Nave with chronological succession of saints, Ninian, Patrick, Columba, Mungo, Cuthbert, Magnus, David and John Ogilvie: NE, Saints Andrew, Agatha and Margaret: porch, St Peter appears to St Agatha:

BOUNDARY WALL: red brick boundary walls.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Similarly Romanesque, the later Methil Parish (Church of Scotland) Church, 1925, was also by Fairlie. The foundation stone here was laid on 14th December, 1922 by Bishop Graham Grey from Edinburgh, and the stone cross memorial to deceased parishioners came from the Old Church of 1903-1923. The stained glass by John Blyth bears the distinctive bumble bee signature; and much of the other glass is also of very high quality. The adjoining presbytery, possibly also by Fairlie, has some good interior woodwork.

References

Bibliography

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