Description

Matthews and Mackenzie, Aberdeen, 1880; church hall 1902. Aisless gothic church with 3-bay nave, low chancel, transepts, porch and circular tower corbelled to octagonal belfry stage with slated spire. Squared and snecked rock-faced rubble with polished ashlar dressings. Base, partial moulded cill course and eaves course. Pointed- and basket-arched openings Sawtooth-coped battered buttresses; raked cills; hoodmoulds with label-stops; plate tracery. Voussoirs and stone mullions. Boarded timber doors with decorative ironwork hinges.

SOUTH (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: nave with 3 plate-traceried windows, low porch projecting in bay to left with deeply chamfered reveals and low flanking buttresses, and tower (see below) in re-entrant angle to left. Transeptal chapel with raised centre 3-light window and flanking low buttresses projecting in penultimate bay to right, and bipartite window to outer right.

TOWER: squat 3-stage stair tower with spire. 1st stage with cill course and small window. Slightly reduced 2nd stage with 2 small stair windows and corbelled, polygonal 3rd stage louvered openings giving way to conical-roofed finialled spire.

NORTH ELEVATION: 3 plate-traceried windows to nave, transept (vestry) with tripartite window and basket-arched door on return to left projecting in penultimate bay to left, and bipartite window to outer left.

EAST ELEVATION: broad gable with flanking buttresses and dominant raised centre 3-light window.

WEST ELEVATION: as E elevation but with trefoil opening in gablehead. Leaded diamond pattern glazing and stained glass (see Interior) windows. Grey slates, fishscale pattern to spire. Ashlar-coped skews with gablet skewputts and stone Celtic cross finial to nave east.

INTERIOR: fine alabaster altarpiece (1900) with flanking alabaster panels, original stencilled decoration of fleur de lis and crowns, and timber choir stalls to chancel. Encaustic floor tiles, fixed timber pews, boarded dadoes and timber barrel roof. Stone pulpit and Baptismal font. Stained glass: E window depicting 'Crucifixion' (1900). 'Adoration of the Magi' and 'Christ among the Doctors in the Temple' (1908), and 'Baptism, Fasting, Temptation' by Margaret Chilton (1948) to south windows of nave. SS Brendan and Bride (circa 1950), Christ as Good Shepherd and Good Samaritan (circa 1930), and 'Let the Little Ones Come Unto Me' (G Maile Studios circa 1950) to north windows of nave. Windows believed to have been designed by glass designer Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907).

BOUNDARY WALLS: saddleback- and semicircular-coped rubble boundary walls.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such.

St Margaret's was built during the ministry of Rev J Thomson, with some material coming from R C Carpenter's unfinished Burntisland Episcopal church of 1850. Consecrated by Bishop Wordsworth in August 1881, the church cost £1700 excluding the belfry tower which was a gift from Sir Henry Gibson Carmichael.

Listed building record updated 2022 to reference Charles Eamer Kempe.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17810366

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.

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