Description

1882-1883 (dated 1883). Gothic church with 2-stage spire. Squared and snecked stone with ashlar dressings. Gablet buttresses. Hoodmoulds to pointed arch openings. Encircling string course from impost level of principal door.

SW ELEVATION: tower engaged to left (see below). Narrow gable of

nave and narthex to centre with door in deeply moulded surround, 2-leaf boarded doors with decorative hinges, and small cusped lights flanking; tall paired lancets with geometric tracery above into gablehead with slender slit windows flanking and moulded oculus above; cross finial; gablet capped buttresses flanking with stepped slit ornament at head above neck band. Low return of gabled baptistery to right, lancet window.

TOWER: rising from W corner with tall 1st stage comprised of pilaster- buttresses, lancet, inscribed panel (see Notes), and louvred pair of arrowslits. Upper stage recessed on battered course, each face with louvred bipartite lancets and framed by engaged polygonal pinnacles breaking wallhead, with stone, conical caps, above neckband and slit to each face; wallhead with scalloped corbel table.

NE ELEVATION: gable end with stepped tripartite lancets. Stained glass glazing to end gables. Slate roof.

INTERIOR: U-plan gallery with full-height pointed arch arcade, open roof. Dado partly boarded, plastered walls above. Doors with quatrefoil details repeated in sections of gallery's panelled front and on panelled back of pulpit and double stair. Fixed pews with 2 aisles.

Organ pipes (introduced in 1899) in 2 sections over doors flanking pulpit. Gallery supported on cast-iron columns with broad, decorative foliaceous capitals. Roof with stone corbels to braces between arches. Font, Communion Table and Lectern with Gothic detailing, en suite.

BOUNDARY WALLS, GATES, GATEPIERS AND RAILINGS: saddleback coped rubble boundary walls with simple iron railings and gates; ashlar gatepiers with gablet caps.

Statement of Interest

Replacing the earlier Renfrew Free Church of 1843, on the same site, and incorporating from this church's tower (1845) an inscribed panel (also on the new tower), 'We ought to obey God, rather than men. Rebuilt 1883'. About 300 members of the Established church broke away to form the Free Church at the Disruption, and it is thought that the earlier church may have been the first built for the Free Church in

Scotland. Music was first introduced in 1873, and the organ installed in the new church in1899. It was opened on 20 November 1883 and cost ?5083: it was intended to have a spire crowning the tower but this was not built for reasons of economy. The 1883 church is very different in design from its predecessor, though there are similarities between the towerheads of the two.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q15126028

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

• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
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  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014