Old Parish Church, Church Square, Duns, Duns, Scottish Borders

Description

1790, classical steeple; church largely rebuilt to similar pattern,

retaining steeple, after fire; Wardrop and Reid, 1880.

STEEPLE: droved cream ashlar sandstone with polished dressings. 3-stage square tower with octagonal belfry and ashlar spire. 1st 2 stages projecting from S elevation of church; divided by band course and surmounted by cornice and blocking course; base course, long and short quoins. Doorcase to front with raised margins and pediment; boarded door with wrought-iron hinges. Blank returns; 2nd stage with lugged frame to front containing sunken panel inscribed ERECTED 1790

DESTROYED BY FIRE 1879 RESTORED 1880. 3rd stage swept in from blocking course; each face with consoled open pediment above blind oculus; urn at each corner. Octagonal belfry with round-headed openings, blind and louvred alternately; cornice. Octagonal spire with wrought-iron weathervane finial.

CHURCH: 2-storey rectangular hall with projecting gallery block to S. Cream sandstone, both squared and snecked and coursed, and droved and stugged; also some older dressed rubble. Polished ashlar dressings; base course; long and short quoins; moulded eaves.

N ELEVATION: bipartite round-headed windows with chamfered arrises and stop-channelled mouldings. Projecting open pedimented range at centre with window at ground; arcaded tripartite window breaking into pediment at 1st floor; corresponding hoodmould aligning with eaves. 2-bay returns with windows to both floors. Left range with windows to both

floors to right. Open pedimented porch at centre with chamfered angles corbelled to square and pilastered round-headed window with bracketed cill; blank panel in gablehead; right return with pilastered round-headed doorcase with panelled keystone and deep-set 2-leaf boarded doors with wrought-iron hinges. Church hall to left, connected to porch (see separate listing). Right range with windows to both floors to left and window at ground to right; wall encloses court to front with semicircular coping and pair of gatepiers with flattened pyramidal caps.

W ELEVATION: projecting bay to left with tall round-headed window at 1st floor. 2 bays to right with round-headed bipartite windows to right at ground and both bays at 1st floor. Porch (as above) projecting in re-entrant angle at centre.

S ELEVATION: 5 symmetrical bays. Tower at centre (see above). Flanking bays with large full-height round-headed windows. Outer bays with blind pedimented aedicule at ground and round-headed bipartite architraved window above. To left, Gothic revival monument between bays; to right, pedimented monument 1883 to Hay family set into aedicule (which adjoins their burial enclosure).

E ELEVATION: round-headed windows. Projecting bay to right with large window to 1st floor and small narrow window to left at ground; adjoined by hall to right; return to left with boarded door deep-set into round-headed pilastered doorcase with keystone. To left bipartite windows to both floors and single window at ground in re-entrant angle. Lugged panel to outer left.

Leaded windows, mostly stained glass. Piended roofs, pitched roof skylight at centre; grey slates.

INTERIOR: dating from 1880, with possible exception of cast-iron columns with egg and dart moulding supporting gallery. Box pews and panelled gallery retaining family pews of local estates. Oak hammerbeam roof with coving at centre supporting skylight. Spectacular 3-tier Connacher organ with blind arcading to 2nd tier and pipes with original stencilled decoration to 3rd. Steps to pulpit raised on organ console at centre. Stained glass mostly by D Small, Edinburgh, 1880. Old offering stools and plates. Black and terracotta tiled floor survives throughout.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: rubble boundary wall to W with flat ashlar coping. Small stretch to Church Square with saddleback ashlar coping large chamfered gatepiers with base course and cornice; one clasping corner of church. Rubble retaining wall of graveyard to S with boulder coping.

GRAVEYARD: transepts and nave of old church marked by burial enclosures of families of Wedderburn, Duns Castle and Manderston. Wedderburn aisle incorporates lintel with inscription DEATH CANNOT SINDER 1608 [REPAIRED MDCCLX111] and the later legend 'Home of Wedderburn Burial Ground, Formerly covered by a vault The old stones here preserved were over the entrance door Having been erected by Sir George Home in 1608' and on the obverse ERECTED 1875.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building still in use as such. The medieval church was replaced by a new adjoing one in 1790, being finally demolished in 1874. The new church was rebuilt to much the same plan and incorporating much of the original fabric after the fire of 1879. The alterations and additions are plainly visible in the patterns of the stonework.

External Links

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