Documents

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• Type

  Map

  Title

  Map for 7, 8, 9, 10 Pier Place, Former St Andrew's Free Church and Halls, Edinburgh (LB43724)

  Download(https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/document/600035876)

Summary

Description

James Anderson Hamilton, 1852; recast and enlarged by Wallace & Flockhart, 1882/3. Converted 5-bay Gothic T-plan church (now a recreation centre) with steeple tower at the north re-entrant angle. Two-storey, four-bay former halls to right (converted to dwellings, 9 and 10 Pier Place), and two-storey, single-bay former organ house to left (converted to residential, 7 Pier Place).

Former Church (8 Pier Place): Squared and snecked sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. Coped base course, chamfered arises, and raised stone skews. The advanced transept has two symmetrical pointed-arch windows with stone tracery, and hoodmoulds with maritime carving, including a sailing boat, rope and anchor, and various sea creatures, and a bowed triangular window above with rose tracery. The windows in the bays to the left and right of the steeple tower also have pointed-arch windows with geometric tracery. The bay to the left has a blind trefoil inset above the window, while the bay to the right has a bipartite gabled dormer set within the pitch of the roof. The steeple tower (1882/3) is constructed of coursed sandstone ashlar. Pointed arch doorway with replacement timber and plate glass door, and four single windows above the arch. Above the projecting string course the tower has gabled buttressing surmounted by octagonal gabled pinnacles, tall lucarne belfry windows, and a hexagonal spire. Leaded and stained-glass windows. Interior recast and converted into climbing centre in 1982.

Former Organ House (7 Pier Place): adjoining church to left. Boarded timber door; plate glass fanlight. Round-arched moulded surround with projecting hoodmould and stops. Enlarged single window above with stone margins. Chamfered slit in apex.

Former Halls (9 and 10 Pier Place): adjoining church to right. Squared and snecked red sandstone with polished dressings. Trefoil tracery. Gablets breaking eaves. Two round-arched doorways with timber doors to left. Main entrance with replacement timber door and 6-light segmental fanlight above. Door to outer left with pend access to rear. Tripartite gabled window above. Bipartite windows to ground floor with Tudor-arch hoodmoulds with maritime carving to stops. Geometric tracery (infilled). Two later dormer window additions.

All components have grey slate roof in diminishing courses.

Statement of Special Interest

Known locally as the Fishermen's Church, St Andrew's was highly regarded by all in the village and indeed, by outsiders struck by the quality of its intricate maritime carvings (McGowran). Conversion into a climbing centre and housing after 1977 has left the exterior remarkably intact.

Following the decision by the Secession of Newhaven Parish Church to break away from the Establishment in 1843, the Rev James Fairburn and his congregation were without a permanent place for worship. Having used a wooden hut in the park at the west end of Main Street and the school building as assembly points, the congregation of the Free Church set up a building committee and collections were begun. Accepting Hamilton's design for the new building, work commenced in 1851 and was complete by November 2nd, 1852, when the first meeting of the committee was summoned. With a seating capacity of 600 plus a further 200 in the gallery, St Andrews was half as large again as the church abandoned by the congregation in 1843. Thus, having had no church for nearly 300 years, Newhaven had two by the mid-1850s. See photograph in McGowran, p.185 for former appearance of interior with altar, pulpit, choir stalls and organ.

Statutory address revised, 1990s (former vestry to rear is now listed separately as 44 Newhaven Main Street, LB27275).

Statutory address revised and listed building record updated 2024. Previously listed as '8, 9, 10 Pier Place, Former St Andrew's Free Church and Halls'.

References

Bibliography

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