Description

Pilkington & Bell, 1871-2, tower 1879. Square-plan gothic church with NE tower, hall and offices to NW, basement with schoolroom and vestry to NE; cream sandstone, squared and snecked stugged rubble with stugged ashlar dressings; steeply chamfered cill course; colinnettes with stiff-leaf capitals; doors with distinctive lattice panelling.

ENTRANCE TOWER: 3-stage (bellfry removed 1976); angle buttresses; battered base; moulded eaves course; gabled entrance to SE with refoil doorway in moulded pointed-arch flanked by colonnettes, hoodmould with carved masque stops; 3 attenuated slit lancets above to SE and NE; top of tower with thin proud ashlar strips forming 6 narrow arches with oculi (now boarded up) in centre to each face; buttress-like projection with 2 lancets in centre of NE face.

SE (GILMORE PLACE) ELEVATION: 2-bay (excluding tower to outer right); gabled bay to right with ornate stone finial; row of 5 small basket-arched windows divided by squat columns with moulded capitals at ground floor; large 4-light pointed-arch window with thin colonnettes and geometrical tracery. Slightly advanced gabled bay to left with paired doorways of stilted pointed arches with colonettes; 2 lancets with cusped heads above; rose window with tracey in gablehead; clasping buttresses with battered caps. Facade of offices adjoining to left, 2-storey, 3-bay; pointed-arch central door with colonnettes supporting gabled and finialled ashlar canopy, tripartite windows with chamfered reveals to outer bays, 2 single windows above breaking eaves flanked by quatrefoil oculi, parapet of cast-iron brattishing, single storey church hall behind offices. NE (VIEWFORTH) ELEVATION: 3 gabled bays (excluding tower to outer left); basement to left with 4 windows and door to right of centre; at ground floor level continuous row of 10 small basket-arched windows divided by squat columns with moulded capitals; 2 lancets with quatrefoil heads above under gables of outer bays; bay to centre with large 4-light pointed-arch window with geometrical tracery and stepped hoodmould; 'green man' carvings at meeting of gable copings. SW ELEVATION: 4-bay; single storey church hall and offices at ground floor; 2 trefolied lancets in outer right bay; 3 gabled bays to left with continuous row of small rectangular windows with chamfered reveals above church hall, 2 lancets with quatrefoils above under gables of outer bays; bay to centre with large 4-light pointed-arch window with geometrical tracey.

NW ELEVATION: rose window with tracery in gablehead. Small, diamond-shaped leaded panes with stained glass borders, windows to basement and offices timber sash and case windows with plate glass glazing; slate roof, lead flashings; coped skews.

INTERIOR: plastered T-plan interior with groin-vault above; raked timber U-plan gallery with carved, panelled balustrade; slender cast-iron columns with elaborate Corinthian capitals and four-way consoles supporting transverse beams with ornate foliate cornice over side galleries; tie-rods between capitals; modern screens under gallery cutting diagonally across SW corners and to NE across short leg of T; ornamental cast-iron round ventilation grilles in ceiling; tiled vestibules and open stair towers to gallery and tower with ornamental cast-iron railings in re-entrant angles of T-plan; curved timber pews with cast-iron umbrella stands. FURNISHINGS: elaborately carved large Gothic/Tudorbethan timber pulpit and organ case with blind tracery and pinnacles by TP Marwick, 1899; 2 carved stone fonts, 1 of alabaster, 1 of stone with angel heads; series of Boyle's air inlet Brackets No 6 (as adverties eg in Academy Architecture 1897, now painted over) on side walls. BOUNDARY WALL, GATEPIERS AND RAILINGS: low rubble wall with saddleback coping, sturdy gatepiers with ornate heads and carved foliage in trefoils, ornamental cast-iron railings and 3 sets of gates.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such (Church of Scotland).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Viewforth Church at Wikipedia
• Viewforth Church official website
• Wikidata Q17808251

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

• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)