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Summary

Description

Peddie & Kinnear, monogrammed and dated 1861; halls Sydney Mitchell and Wilson, 1892. Heavy rectangular-plan Italian Gothic church with S corner tower and adjoining halls to NW. Cream sandstone, squared and snecked rubble with polished dressings. Base course; pointed-arch openings with colonnette mullions with foliate capitals and pronounced rubble voussoirs; off-set buttresses; moulded string courses and skews; elaborate ashlar cross finials.

TOWER: 3 stages and stone spire; angle buttresses; 1st stage with doorway to SW (Pilrig Street) set in gabled panel with crocketted finial, roll-moulded pointed arch doorpiece with marble colonnettes with carved capitals; shouldered-arched doorway with roundels to spandrels and sculpted roundel in tympanum; date 1861 on buttress to right, architects initials PK to left. 2nd stage with moulded cill course; to SW 6-light arcade of small windows with trefoil-arched heads and pierced trefoils to spandrels at gablehead of entrance; to SE bipartite window with plate tracery; recessed clock to SE, SW and NW. Top stage comprised of 3 louvred lancet windows with trefoil-tracery heads to each face. Tall polygonal rubble spire, corner pinnacles with nook-shafts and louvred lucarnes, both with tall pyramidal roofs of banded fishscale and ashlar masonry.

SE (LEITH WALK) ELEVATION: 3-bay including corner tower (see above) to outer left; broad gabled entrance bay at centre with doorway in gabled and finialled panel flanked by bipartite windows with plate tracery in gabled and finialled panels. Large wheel window with plate tracery and small oculus in gablehead above. Bay to right comprised of squat 2-stage stair tower with banded fishscale slating to pyramidal bellcast roof; quatrefoil oculus at lower stage and stepped 4-light window with trefoil heads at top stage.

SW (PILRIG STREET) ELEVATION: 3-bay including tower to outer left, M-gabled with continuous row of 3 gabled bipartite windows with plate tracery above base course to each bay; large windows comprised of quatrefoil-banded rose window over trefoiled arcading with trefoil pierced spandrels above; quatrefoil oculi in gableheads; dividing buttress with birdcage pinnacle of trefoil arches, banded fishscale and ashlar masonry, delicate iron cross finial.

Lattice-patterned leaded lights. Slate roof, lead flashings.

INTERIOR: lofty interior; raked galleries with panelled balustrade and quatrefoil insets on cast-iron columns with foliate ashlar capitals; tall and elegant arch braced timber roof with carved and moulded corbels, timber arcading to inset dormer windows. Elaborately carved gothic pulpit and reredos (prob. circa 1892) and organ by Foster & Andrews, 1903, communion table and font with blind arcading. Original non-figurative stained glass scheme complete, Daniel Cottier of Field & Allan, circa 1862; E rose window by Ballantine studio.

HALLS: Tudor Gothic church halls with similar detailing to above. Rectangular windows with ashlar mullions and transoms and quatrefoil insets.

SW (PILRIG STREET) ELEVATION: 5 irregular bays. Broad angled bay to outer right with tripartite window at ground and large stepped window above, angle to right chamfered at ground floor. Small leaded bellcote with open arcading and slate roof. Flanking circular stairtower to left with open arcaded towerhead of round-arched bipartite windows with marble colonnette mullions and polygonal roof set in re-entrant angle. Angled centre bay with bipartite and single window at ground and stepped tripartite breaking eaves in broad gablehead above. Flanking bay to left narrower and angled with bipartite windows as centre bay. Recessed bay to outer left, pointed-arch doorway with hoodmould, block label stops and blank tympanum; rectangular window of 5 small lights and gabled wallhead dormer with bipartite window above.

NW ELEVATION: gabled with 2 bipartite window at ground floor; single and 3 grouped windows at 1st floor above; small stepped tripartite in gablehead.

Leaded pane glazing, set in timber sash and case windows at ground floor. Slate roof, lead flashings and finials.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. The non-figurative stained glass scheme by Daniel Cottier, chief designer at Field & Allan of Leith from c. 1862 until circa 1867, is his earliest known work. He later worked with architects such as Greek Thomson and William Leiper and developed similar abstract interpretations of Gothic patterns painted freehand as at Pilrig for the stained glass at Leiper?s Dowanhill church (1866-7).

References

Bibliography

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