St James The Less Episcopal Church, Broomhill Road, Penicuik, Penicuik, Midlothian

Description

R T N Speir, architect, 1882, with Henry Seymour, draughtsman and supervisor; chancel addition by John Kinross and Harold Ogle Tarbolton, 1897-99, church hall by Eric Stevenson, 1978. Single storey and basement rectangular Gothic revival church on falling ground, comprising 4-bay nave with 2-bay chancel stepping down to E over vestry, with 2-stage square plan tower to SE. Rock-faced Marfield sandstone ashlar nave, stugged, rake-jointed and snecked sandstone chancel; tooled and polished dressings. Pointed-arch windows to nave, cusped windows to chancel. Base and cill course at nave; long and short quoins; some chamferred arrises.

TOWER: advanced, crenellated tower in penultimate bay from right at S elevation, comprising recessed single storey lean-tos flanking at ground with windows centred to S, 2-light cusped window to left; vertically-boarded timber door to re-entrant angle at lean-to to right; 3-light mullioned window with cavetto moulding to right of centre at S face; carved armorial panel below belfry to E face; round-arched louvered openings with hoodmoulds and grotesque terminals, centred to S, E and W faces at belfry, tripartite at S and E; projecting blank ashlar panel centred at N face.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: gable with bargeboards, with later single storey 5-bay lean-to addition at ground, forming vestries, with tripartite window at centre, remainder bipartite; 4-light stepped window in gable; bellcote corbelled out at apex, breaking eaves, surmounted by Celtic cross finial; vertically-boarded timber door with cavetto-moulded cement hoodmould in recessed bay to right; church hall to outer right.

N ELEVATION: 6-bay, stepped down to left at buttress dividing nave and chancel, comprising gabletted doorpiece in bay to right, with decorative hoodmould and 2-leaf vertically-boarded timber door with decorative metal strap hinges. Timber wall-mounted crucifix to left of doorpiece. 3-light window in penultimate bay from left at basement; windows in remaining bays at principal floor; 2-light in penultimate and 3rd bay from right, 4-light in penultimate bay from left, 3-light in bay to outer left.

E ELEVATION: gable, with 3-light window centred at basement.

S ELEVATION: 5-bay, comprising tower in penultimate bay from right, 2-light window in bay to outer right at basement; windows in remaining bays at principal floor, 2-light in penultimate and 3rd bay from left, 3-light in bay to outer right.

CHURCH HALL: single storey 4-bay random rubble church hall, built out to right at W elevation, comprising cement base course, recessed regularly spaced windows hugging eaves, with angled cills surmounting base course; vertically-boarded timber-fronted gables above eaves level. S gable with vertically-boarded timber door at centre with steps and railings to ground.

INTERIOR: open timber nave roof with collar braces; compartmented timber chancel roof. Reredos screen carved in low relief and painted by Alice Meredith-Williams, comprising seven wooden panels depicting Adoration of the Risen Christ by soldiers and saints, as memorial to Great War dead of the church. Rood screen, 1912, designed by Tarbolton, executed by Thomas Good. Black and white marble chancel floor. Simple timber pews. Oak altar rails designed by Tarbolton and carved by Scott Morton, with fruit, bird and floreate decoration. Pair of pointed arch openings at S, to tower base. Notable stained glass windows by Charles E Kempe and Shrigley and Hunt. Granite font.

Variety of stained glass windows. Graded grey slate roof with decorative terracotta crested ridge; pyramidal slated roof to tower; asphalt roof to entrance addition. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Stack breaking pitch; coped, with circular can. Coped skews with gabletted skewputts.

CHURCHYARD AND BOUNDARY WALLS: churchyard, enclosed by coped random rubble wall.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. The growth of Episcopalianism in the nineteenth century saw the building of churches in various Scottish towns. In 1848 St Columba was established in Edinburgh, and it was from there that a priest was sent to Penicuik to form the Mission of St James the Less. Sir James Clerk of Penicuik's wife, Jane Calvert Mercer, was an Episcopalian, and in 1881, their son, Sir George, feued ground in an area near woodland to east of Penicuik House, known as Broomhill Garden, for the building of a church for the growing congregation.

The designer of St James, R T N Speir, was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Home Mission Board for forty years, and a nephew of Sir George Clerk's wife, Lady Aymee. The stained glass windows by Kempe were commissioned by the Clerk family when Sir George Clerk and his sisters Mary and Jane provided St James with a chancel, replacing a smaller chancel and apse of 1882. Alice Meredith-Williams and her husband Morris executed the low relief figurative bronze friezes in the Scottish National War memorial at Edinburgh Castle, which are similar in style to the carved reredos screen. The original plans for St James the Less were drawn by Henry Seymour, later of Seymour & Kinross. The pulpit was formerly at St Mary's, Soho, London.

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