Description

Robert Morham, 1871. English Gothic Church.

Cruciform-plan with tower and steeple to W, Church hall and additins to rear. Squared and snecked yellow sandstone with polished ashlar dressings; contrasting red sandstone pilasters and colonettes. Coped base course; buttresses and clasping buttresses; foliate capitals; pointed-arched plate traceried windows; cornice, corbelled in parts.

TOWER AND STEEPLE: square-plan, 3-stage tower advanced from nave at centre of 3-bay W elevation; central gabled entrance with broad pointed-arched doorway; 3 red sandstone colonettes flanking with fleuron studded and moulded surround above; carved foliate patera set in gablehead; 2-leaf boarded doors with decorative wrought-iron hinges; 3-light fanlight. 2 narrow windows above entrance under M-shaped hoodmoulding. 3 narrow windows with relieving arches grouped to 2nd stage to W. 3rd stage of tower off-set above coping with arcaded apron below pointed-arched belfry louvres; angle buttresses; cornice to belfry section with arcaded balustrade above, broken by gabletted clocks to each face; oiff-set pinnacles to each angle. Slender lucarned stone spire above.

NAVE AND APSE: 3-bay W elevation: entrance and tower to centre bay (see above); gabled bays to outer left and right with coped blind arcade at ground, pierced by square-headed windows with stop-chamfered reveals; carved foliate paterae in spandrels; tall 2-light windows above. S elevation: buttresses dividing 4-bays, excluding 2-bay trnasept (see below); small bipartite window in bay to outer left; 3-light window at ground to 2nd bay with 2-light window above breaking eaves in gable; tall, narrow 2-light windows in 3rd and 4th bays; single window in bay to outer right. N elevation: mirror image of S elevation except hoodmoulded entrance with deep-set boarded door in bay to outer right, and window breaking eaves in gabled and finialled dormerhead in 2nd bay from right. E elevation: canted and piend-roffed apse with central 2-light window; smaller 3-light windows flanking. 3-light window at centre above; 2-light window sin bays to out left and right.

TRANSEPTS: 2-bay projecting transepts to N and S; 2-light windows to each bay; diminutive rose windows set in gableheads; hoodmoulded pointed-arched doorways to N returns; 2-leaf boasrded doors with decorative wrought-iron hinges; boarded fanlights. Polygonal ventilator above crossing, louvred with leaded conical roof and apron.

LINK BLOCK: 2-storey piend-roof link-block adjoins church to T-plan church hall and house at SE angle.

CHURCH HALL: single storey pitched-roof church hall; coped base course; decorative pyramidal ventilator with wrought-iron finial; gabletted skewputts. 3 bipartite windows to E elevation, 2 to W elevation and tripartite window set in gable to S; piend-roofed lean-to and rendered flat-roofed extension to S.

CHURCH OFFICER'S HOUSE: piend-roofed church officer's house: base and dividing band courses; 2 wroght-iron finials: 2 single windows and pointed-arched entrance to church hall to W elevation; deep-set 2-leaf boarded door; plate glass fanlight. Shouldered doorway to house to N elevation; single window at 1st floor breatking eaves in piend-roofed and finialled ormerhead: shouldered wallhead stack. Single lshouldered window at ground to E; 2 single windows breaking eaves at 1st floor, that to left with piend-roofed dormerhead.

Grey slateroof; moulded eaves guttering; some original rainwater goods, including hoppers and decorative brackets; cruciform stone finials to W gables, N and S transepts, and tower pinnacles.

INTERIOR: wagon-roof on iron-framed timber-clad arches; stone corbels; gallery to W with decorative cast-iron columns; timber dado panelling; timber pews with brass umbralla holders; figurative stained glass, principally by A Ballantine & Gardiner; organ by Brindley & Foster, rebuilt by N P Mander, 1963; decorative gothic Communion Table and polygonal pulpit, supported on colonettes, possibly by Scott Morton & Co; unusual front in 1920s style with gothic detailing; stiarhalls to N and S of main W entrance; S transept coverted to side chapel, 1965.

BOUNDARY WALLS: low saddleback wall to street; high coped brick wall to S; high coped rubble wall to E; iron railings surmounting retaining wall to N.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Originally built for $7,500 as the Robertson Memorial Church in memory of Dr James Robertson, Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Edinburgh. 1972 saw theunion of West St Giles, Warrender, and Grange churches to form Marchmont St Giles. Seating capacity is marked on the 1877 OS map as 800.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17798862

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

• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)