Scoonie Parish Church, Durie Street, Leven, Leven, Fife

Entry Name: Scoonie Parish Church, Durie Street, Leven

Listing Name: Victoria Road and Durie Street, Scoonie Parish Church (Church of Scotland) with Boundary Walls, Gatepiers and Gates

Listing Date: 24 November 1985

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 382420

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB37346

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Leven, Durie Street, Scoonie Parish Church

ID on this website: 200382420

Location: Leven

County: Fife

Town: Leven

Electoral Ward: Leven, Kennoway and Largo

Traditional County: Fife

Tagged with: Church building

Description

Dr Peter Macgregor Chalmers, 1905. Plain aisled Romanesque church. Incorporating SW tower and spire of 1775 by William Robertson of Sawmill, lower stages recased, octagonal belfry stage and spire remain unaltered; 1883 organ chamber to S. Continuous 7-bay nave and chancel; flanking gabled aisles, that to N 2-stage, that to S with transeptal organ chamber; single storey NE vestry. Stugged, squared and snecked rubble with droved ashlar quoins. String course incorporating hoodmoulds to W, eaves course. Tall single stage, sawtooth -coped buttresses to W; paired, roll-moulded, round-headed doorcases; roll-moulded (except to N) round-headed and circular windows; tracery. Voussoirs, raked cills, stone mullions. Boarded timber doors throughout.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: advanced centre gable to with buttress, flanking paired doorcases, 2-leaf doors with semicircular fanlights and flanking outer buttresses. Paired tall windows above with cushion-capitalled nookshafts and concave-moulded heads, similarly moulded surround to circular window in cross-finialled gablehead above. Slightly recessed transeptal stair tower to left of centre with square-headed door and adjacent small light (blocked) to left, further small light above. Recessed gable in bay to right with tower (see below) in re-entrant angle to left and tall single light immediately to right.

SW TOWER: 2-stage tower with octagonal spire. Tall 1st stage with stone forestair to S leading to round-headed, low piended porch in re-entrant angle to W. Octagonal 2nd stage with clock face dipping into 1st stage at S and W, arrowslit to cardinal faces above, and cornice giving way to spire with concave panels and decorative cast-iron weathervane.

N (VICTORIA ROAD) ELEVATION: 1st stage of nave with paired narrow lights to bays 2 to 5, and smaller tripartite window to outer left, 5 regularly disposed windows above. Recessed bay to outer right with transeptal stair tower and single window. Slightly advanced, low piended session house with small bipartite window to outer left.

S (DURIE STREET) ELEVATION: gabled apse with circular window projecting to centre bay of nave, 2-light traceried windows in flanking bays and further single lights to outer bays; low flat-roofed projection in re-entrant angle to left of apse.

E ELEVATION: advanced cross-finialled gable to centre with tall raised centre tripartite window, flanking recessed gabled aisles each with single tall window, small piended projection in re-entrant angle to left and advanced piended session house to right.

Stained glass windows (see Interior) with multi-paned leaded glazing to 1st stage N. Grey slates. Ashlar-coped skews with gablet skewputts; cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers.

INTERIOR: arcaded and galleried nave with cushion-capitalled ashlar columns and hammerbeam roof springing from stone corbels to nave, kingpost-trussed to aisles. Fixed timber pews, boarded dadoes and panelled gallery fronts to N and W. Raised chancel with fixed choir stalls, pulpit to S and arcaded Communion Table; red granite Baptismal Font, all of 1904; oak panelling of 1924. Side chapel with table and 2 chairs of wood from Old Kirk. August Gern pipe organ of 1884, restored c1990. Narthex with classical mural monuments to former ministers, and cantilevered winding stone stair with decorative cast-iron balusters to N.

STAINED GLASS: chancel windows by Percy Bacon and Brothers, 1904, depicting 'Christ in Majesty' flanked by 'Sts Peter and Paul'. N aisle windows by Cottier & Co, c1910, depicting 'Sts Matthew, Mark, Luke John, James and Dorcas'; Holman Hunt's 'Light of the World', and 'Behold, I send you forth' 1934. S aisle: WWII Memorial window by W Wilson, 1951; Wallace memorial window (after 1930); and traceried WWI Memorial window by J Henry Dearle of Morris & Co, 1925, depicting Christ receiving soldier into Paradise. 'Baptismal window' to E wall of long gallery, depicting 'Mother and Child'.

BOUNDARY WALLS, GATEPIERS AND GATES: coped rubble boundary walls with pyramidal-coped square-section gatepiers and ironwork gates.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. The Parish Church, transferred from Scoonie in 1775, and was extended to seat 1000 in 1822. This early twentieth century building retaining both steeple and S wall, cost ?5200 to build and was dedicated on 6th August, 1904.

External Links

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