Description

Frank Thomson, dated 1937. Cruciform-plan Scottish Romanesque church and slightly earlier rectangular-plan church hall attached. Harled brick, moulded and lined reconstituted stone dressings, red tile roof. Round-headed window with margined long and short dressings, small leaded panes; moulded wallhead course with corbel stones at gables; coped skews.

S ELEVATION: advanced 3-stage entrance tower: 2-leaf door with segmental arch and consecration-type cross in tympanum under moulded and dentilled round-headed arch with scalloped capital nook shafts; small rectangular aperatures at left and right return elevations, band course at 2nd stage with small round-headed apertures at each elevation, moulded band at 3rd stage with similar apertures, buttresses at re-entrant angles. Main gable has windows flanking tower with buttresses at angles (datestone at right buttress).

W ELEVATION: transept gable advanced at off-centre with tripartite window and small aperture at gable; buttress at right return elevation flanked by windows at gallery level; 2 windows at left return elevation, porch at left re-entrant angel with 2-leaf door under segmental arch, window at left return of nave; lower chancel bay recessed at far left with lean-to at ground floor and window above; church hall adjoining at outer left; windows at right of transept with 3 buttresses.

E ELEVATION: similar to W elevation but with organ chamber at right re-entrant of transept.

INTERIOR: in original layout (except that communion table has been brought forward). Reconstituted stone columns to arcaded aisles and dressings as exterior; cill course, wallhead course, round-headed arches with scalloped capitals; tripartite reredos with nook shafts. Windows have motteled pale yellow leaded panes (some replaced with clear glass). 3 manual organ in grained case, Frederwick Rothwell and sons, Harrow, Middlesex, reputedly brought from a bombed London Church.

CHURCH HALL: axially adjoined to N gable of church. E gable: 2-leaf door with segmental arch and consecration-type cross at tympanum under moulded round-headed arch, flanked by single windows, smaller window at gable.

N ELEVATION: modern addition at centre, single and paired windows at left, single windows at right.

W GABLE: 3 windows at ground floor, oculus at gable.

Statement of Interest

Craigbank church stands at the centre of the concentrically-planned Craigie garden suburb by James and Harry Thomson, 1919, a design inspired by the planning theorist Ebenezer Howard. The style a modern interpretation of Romanesque, echoes John Kinross's St Pter's Church, Fraserburgh, 1890-92, particularly on the interior. See also Thomson's St John's Cross Church, Blackness Avenue, Dundee, 1911-14.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17813806

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

• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)