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Summary

Description

David Rhind, 1863. 4-bay, rectangular-plan, gabled, Gothic church with dominant square-plan, 3-stage, heavily buttressed tower with pyramidal roof and weather vane. Red stugged sandstone with droved ashlar dressings. Base course; dentilled eaves course; corbelled parapet to tower. Pointed-arch Y-traceried windows; lancets in porches and vestry. Shouldered buttresses to tower, nave, porches and vestry.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: projecting gabled porches at N elevation of tower and SE corner of nave with steps up to deeply recessed columned doorways with hoodmoulds terminated by label stops; 2-leaf timber-boarded doors with decorative iron hinges.

Predominantly diamond pane leaded lights in timber Y-traceried windows. Sawtooth finialed ashlar-coped skews. Welsh slates, zinc ridges. Finials on gables (some missing). Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: open trussed and boarded timber roof carried on stone corbels. Round-headed chancel arch with hood mould and label stops; raised area to N of chancel arch. Central aisle in nave; some box pews in sanctuary and on S of chancel arch, the latter retaining fixed drop-leaf table.

GRAVEYARD: gravestones from late 18th century and 19th century in area adjacent to church; 20th century stones in extension to N. Several family burial enclosures (Elliot of Clifton Park; Scott of Crumhaugh, Wauchope & Pinnaclehill and others) originally set into N wall of graveyard (now free-standing because of graveyard extension and removal of parts of wall).

WALLS AND GATES: Rubble graveyard walls; ashlar gatepiers with moulded bases and octagonal pointed capstones. 2-leaf iron gates.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. A simple but well proportioned church by the prolific architect David Rhind (1808-1883), occupying a striking position in the landscape. It can usefully be compared with Caddonfoot Parish Church designed by Rhind just two years later. Although the Caddonfoot Church lacks the large tower of Hobkirk, many of the same details are reused, for example, the solid angled buttresses on nave and porches and on the tower in the case of Hobkirk. Both have relatively steeply pitched roofs over the nave and use simple Y-traceried windows. Although Rhind's practice was predominantly commercial and public buildings, often classical in style, and it was in this that his strength lay, in these two churches he shows himself to be competent although not remarkable designer of Gothic.

The church was re-orientated in 1905 when the pulpit was moved from the S to the N end. The raised N section (now the sanctuary) originally performed the function of a laird's loft and was entered through the N porch (hence a number of memorial plaques are mounted on the walls in this part of the church). The N porch is very similar if not identical to that at the SW corner. It is unusual for the porches for the laird and for the other members of the congregation to be the same. The box pews adjacent to the chancel arch are unusual because of the fixed tables which survive in the enclosed areas.

References

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