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Summary

Description

Designed Alexander Tod, 1890; erected A Stewart Tod; altered Charles R Tod, 1969; mural William McLaren, 1969. 18th century graveyard. Cruciform-plan, plain gothic-detailed, crowstepped church with 3-bay aisless nave with dividing buttresses, and tri-lobe tracery rose window. Red sandstone rubble with dressed ashlar quoins and rock-faced margins. Pointed-arch and round openings. 3-stage coped buttresses; stone mullions.

SW (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: broad crowstepped gable with small crowstepped outer porches, each with small window to SW and door to inner returns, linked by gothic loggia; set-back 2-leaf panelled timber door to centre. Large tri-lobed rose window (see Notes) above in cross-finialled gable.

SE ELEVATION: nave with 3 tripartite windows to left of centre; gabled transept to right with lancet and blind oculus in gablehead, and bipartite window on return to left; smaller crowstepped bay projecting to outer right with boarded timber door to left and square-headed window to right.

NW ELEVATION: nave and transept as above (latter with blocked lancet), crowstepped bay to outer left (detail obscured by wall).

NE ELEVATION: large raised centre tripartite window to centre of cross-finialled gable with single lancets to outer bays (all openings blocked).

Multi-pane diamond pattern leaded glazing with coloured margins. Large grey slates (Countess slates) except SE transept and outer right bay with modern grey slate. Ashlar-coped skews with moulded skewputts; and cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers.

INTERIOR: oak chairs in timber panelled nave punctuated by engaged polygonal marble columns with cushion capitals supporting open-beamed boarded timber roof. Later dividing wall with mural of Christ and trumpeting angels (see Notes) and broken-pedimented doors leading to smaller hall. Transepts now lead to small hall (original chancel) with wall plaques commemorating former ministers and stone engravings of the '10 Commandments'. Oak Pulpit made of panels from Wemyss Castle. Variety of memorials to nave include marble WWII memorial, and wall plaque in memory of Stewart Tod, estate architect and church elder.

BOUNDARY WALLS, GRAVEYARD AND MONUMENTS: coped rubble boundary walls enclosing graveyard and church. Graveyard opened 1703, variety of 18th, 19th century (some in fair condition), and 20th century monuments.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Property of Wemyss Estate Trustees. Built in West Wemyss Cemetery as a Quoad Sacra Chapel of Ease, St Adrian's is now united with Wemyss Parish Church (East Wemyss). In 1889 Lady Lilian Wemyss laid the foundation stone, and the building was opened on 9.11.1890. It originally seated 600, and the traceried window was copied from Lochore Church. The Wemyss family provided funds, and the building became the property of the Church of Scotland, but by the late 1960s was due for closure owing to the need for extensive repairs. At that time Captain Wemyss bought the Church back, and carried out repairs and alterations, dividing the building into smaller units. The fabric is now cared for by the Trustees of Wemyss "for so long as there is a worshipping community". The mural, commissioned by Lady Victoria and Captain Wemyss to mark their 60th wedding anniversary, is by the artist William McLaren of Cardenden who has work in Hopetoun House. The mural is said to derive from a church in Florence, but with Christ instead of the Madonna. The gatepiers dated 1703, which form the original entrance to the graveyard, are listed separately as part of the War Memorial.

References

Bibliography

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