Description

Rebuilt after fire damage, James Pearson Alison, 1907, incorporating earlier fabric (see Notes). 3-bay, T-plan, early English Gothic style church with Arts and Crafts detailing, prominent gabled porch and W gable bird-cage belfry with pagoda roof and ball finial. Harled and washed with diagonally droved sandstone dressings. Base course; bracketed eaves. Pointed-arch windows and doors in porch and vestry and on W gable with hood moulds and label stops. Y-traceried windows with chamfered margins.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: entrance porch on S elevation with pronounced splayed walls; 2-leaf recessed timber-boarded door with strap hinges in chamfered margin. Vestry and Roxburgh aisle to N, mainly of 1907, also with splayed walls.

Fixed pane leaded lights with coloured borders. Ashlar-coped skews with moulded skewputts. Welsh slate roofs and zinc ridge. Cast-iron rain water goods.

INTERIOR: largely dating from 1907 but with vestiges of medieval round-headed doorway in S wall (now blocked). Wide arch at NW corner, opening onto Roxburgh aisle, with original box pews. Trussed open wooden roof.

GRAVEYARD: originally to S and E of church, extended to N in 20th century. Gravestones date from 17th century until present; several stones set into exterior walls of the church including 17th century headstone in E gable, red sandstone 18th century monument to the Hall family and fragmentary 18th century monument with columned niche with entablature and broken pediment, both on S wall.

WALLS, GATES AND GATEPIERS: rubble walls; gates at SE corner.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. The church is situated in a bend the Kale Water and forms a conspicuous group with the former manse which lies just to the S, particularly on the approach by road to the village from the north.

The church as it now stands was rebuilt after the fire in 1907. The previous church dated from the 16th century or possibly earlier and was rebuilt in 1752 and 1844. The main survival from the early church is the round-headed arch on the S wall in the interior. The renewal of 1844 is by John Smith of Darnick, but 'Buildings of Scotland', from which this information is drawn does not state the precise nature of this work.

James Pearson Alison, who undertook the rebuilding of the church after the fire, was an important and prolific local architect. He practised in Hawick from the late 1880s until his death in 1932. He is responsible for a large number of buildings in both Hawick and Jedburgh, and other parts of the Borders.

Although little is left of the Medieval church on this site, the rebuilding by J P Alison after fire damage is sympathetic with its Arts & Crafts detailing, and demonstrates Alison's ability in church design.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56617197

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
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  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
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  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)