Braid Church, 1, 1A Nile Grove, Morningside, Edinburgh, Morningside, Edinburgh

Entry Name: Braid Church, 1, 1A Nile Grove, Morningside, Edinburgh

Listing Name: 1, 1A Nile Grove, Morningside Braid Church (C of S) with Church Halls.

Listing Date: 14 December 1970

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 364927

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB27655

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Edinburgh, Morningside, 1, 1a Nile Grove, Braid Church

ID on this website: 200364927

Location: Edinburgh

County: Edinburgh

Town: Edinburgh

Electoral Ward: Morningside

Traditional County: Midlothian

Tagged with: Church building Architectural structure

Description

George Washington Browne, 1886. Octagonal church with central bellcote and Italian Renaissance details, set diagonally to street corner, church halls to N. Squared and snecked red sandstone rubble, cream ashlar dressings. Principal ground floor windows with chamfered or rounded arrises; corniced 1st floor windows (some architraved); eaves cornice. SW (FRONT) ELEVATION: pedimented ashlar front with semi-circular portico on coupled red sandstone Roman Ionic columns, dentilled cornice and balustraded parapet, architraved entrance surround with pilasters dividing 3 panelled doors. Large moulded Venetian window with egg and dart cornice above framed by flat pilasters; heavily coped pediment with louvred and pedimented arrowslit window. Stair towers and ashlar bell towers flanking. Bell towers with large round-arched and keystoned ashlar birdcage bellcotes with finialled pyramidal stone roofs. Small semi-circular stair towers flanking with rubble base, single windows to ashlar stairhead and half-conical finialled roofs.

SE ELEVATION: 3 faces of octagon; cill course at 1st floor; centre face breaking eaves and pedimented over corniced Venetian window flanked by pilasters of banded rubble; tripartite windows to flanking faces; bipartite window at ground floor to left.

NW ELEVATION: as SE elevation.

NE (REAR) ELEVATION: blank rectangular organ chamber.

CHURCH HALLS: 2 halls set obliquely to N and linked to church through passage to NW; small single storey rubble hall with ashlar gable to W and piend roof; 2 bipartite windows divided by flat pilasters; tall pedimented centre bay with angle pilasters; decorative galleried ventilator to ridge with ogee cupola. Further large rubble hall adjoining to N with black slate piend roof, 2 single windows and entrance door to E. Mostly small-pane timber casements with leaded glazing, sash and case windows to hall with small-pane upper sashes and 2-pane lower sashes. Green slate pyramidal roof, red ridge tiles; wallhead stack to organ chamber, ridge stacks to chruch halls. Moulded eaves gutters and gutterheads.

INTERIOR: raked auditorium with curved raked timber gallery on square wooden columns; corniced angle pilasters leading to panelled ribs of shallow octagonal dome with central ornamental ventilation grille; entablature clerestory windows framed by plain cornices; plain timber pews with umbrella stands; timber dado; organ in keystoned round arch behind pulipt over panelled aedicule with dentilled cornice and pediment and decorative cast-iron grille to opening. Plain timber pulipt, lectern and communion table. Vestibule with compartmentalised barrel vault with on short marbled wooden columns dividing stair openings to each side. Smaller church hall with open timber roof on stone corbels. Low rubble boundary wall with plain cast-iron railings, gates with small thistle finials, inset fish and dove motifs to main gate.

Statement of Interest

Group with 1-10 Hermitage Terrace, 4, 6 Nile Grove, 25, 27 Nile grove, 8 Nile Grove, 9-23 Nile Grove, 29-39 Nile Grove and 41-53 Nile Grove. Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Braid Church (built for United Presbyterian) replaced an iron church of 1883 (corner of Braid Road and Comiston Road) as the congregation outgrew its capacity. The present church was commissioned in 1886 and built in under a year for $5500. Part of the church halls and the organ chamber date from 1989 and 1911. The plan form of the church recalls an Italian baptistery and in 1893 the church was decorated with extensive marbelling continuing this theme, but only the columns in the vestibule have survived in this form. Browne designed a further Italianate church, the Maison Dieu at Brechin, 1891, and added several organs to existing churches such as Broughton Macdonald Church, Edinburgh. The baptistry form was a very innovative choice for church design in this period.

External Links

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