Burntisland Parish Church, East Leven Street, Burntisland, Burntisland, Fife

Entry Name: Burntisland Parish Church, East Leven Street, Burntisland

Listing Name: East Leven Street, Burntisland Parish Church (Church of Scotland)

Listing Date: 24 November 1972

Category: A

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 358409

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB22777

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Burntisland Parish Church
St Columba's, Burntisland
Burntisland, East Leven Street, Burntisland Parish Church

ID on this website: 200358409

Location: Burntisland

County: Fife

Town: Burntisland

Electoral Ward: Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy

Traditional County: Fife

Tagged with: Parish church

Description

1592-96, with steeple of timber and lead by John Roche 1600; galleries inserted between 1602 and 1630; W porch by Andrew Alison, 1659; tower rebuilt in stone by Samuel Neilson, 1748; wallhead raised 1.2m and windows enlarged by David Vertue, 1822; organ donated by Andrew Carnegie, 1909; W door and gates by Hurd Rolland Partnership 1992; further alterations in 1679, and by Alexander Hope in 1789. 2-storey, 3-bay square plan Church with piended-roof, 2-stage centre tower and diagonal 4-stage battered buttresses with cushion finials. Harled with ashlar buttresses and tower; dressed quoins, eaves cornice, architraved doorcases, deeply chamfered arrises, voussoirs and stone mullions.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: symmetrical. Advanced single storey pitch-roofed entrance porch with flat coped curtain wall, round-headed timber door and glazed fanlight with astragals of upturned anchor design below dated stone (1532) with upturned anchor; bipartite windows in flanking bays; 3 commemorative stones on wall to right of centre and

1 to left. 1st floor with 3 regular bipartite windows.

S ELEVATION: 3-bay; part-glazed timber door to centre, commemorative stone with hoodmould to right and bipartite window in bay to outer right, bipartite window in bay to left with small single storey lean-to with timber door to outer left; 3 bipartite windows at 1st floor.

E ELEVATION: ashlar balustrade to stone forestair with corniced dies to 1st floor Sailors' loft entrance, timber door with cornice worded "Gods providence is our inheritance June 6 1679" above an upturned anchor; bipartite window to right and left of centre at ground and 1st floor.

N ELEVATION: 3-bay. Ground floor and 1st floor with bipartite window at centre and in flanking bays.

CENTRE TOWER: square base of 4 blank courses, 1st stage with small window at centre in W face below timbered pointed-arch opening to each face, and prominent quoins to each corner; blank coping with banded obelisk pinnacle to each corner. Smaller, octagonal 2nd (belfry) stage with alternate blank faces and timber-louvred circular openings with rusticated surrounds; mutuled cornice giving way to octagonal spire with gilded cockerel weathervane of 1600.

12-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case windows. Piended, slated roof.

INTERIOR: central 1-bay square area formed by round arches on square piers carrying tower. Slightly ramped diagonal arches cross surrounding aisles or ambulatory to sturdy pinnacled diagonal buttresses at angles of church. Galleries carried on fluted columns with artisan Ionic capitals with segmentally arcaded fronts and dwarf Corinthian pilasters. Box pews dated 1725 and 1742. Canopied Magistrates pew, formerly Castle pew built for Sir Robert Melville in 1606 (2 crests painted on panelling that of Sir Robert and Jean Hamilton, Lady Ross), formed around base of NE pier of tower, diamond-panelled with 4-poster-like shafts at angles. Prime Gilt or Sailors' Guild occupied eastern half of southern gallery with decorative paintwork to gallery fronts by Walter Phin in 1618 and 1622 with further decorative work of 1627, 1632, 1711 and 1733 comprising 4 ships, compass, sailor and mottoes, and naval battle for Prime Gilt, pair of scales for merchants, and wheatsheaf for baxters; later additions in 1930s, 1967, 1980s and more recently for 400th birthday celebrations. Modern timber pulpit (polygonal) with sounding board against pier. Arcaded Communion table with Ionic pilasters.

External Links

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