St Marie's Roman Catholic Church, Dunnikier Road, Kirkcaldy, Kirkcaldy, Fife

Description

John Bennie Wilson, 1899-1901. Tudor gothic church, originally Free Church, with tower and squat spire to NW; 2-bay, aisled nave with dividing pilaster, SW transept and NE hall. Squared and snecked bull-faced rubble with dressed ashlar quoins and margins; 2-stage sawtooth- and pyramidal-coped buttresses; chamfered plinth, cill course to 1st stage W, coped batter at 2nd stage N and S, moulded string courses dividing stages of tower and transept, architraved cornice. Traceried windows; continuous hoodmould to W gable incorporating foliate corbel of image niche with Our Lady of Perpetual Succour (added after 1975), hoodmould with foliate label stops to hall, architraved windows with relieving arches to 1st stage of W gable, chamfered reveals and stone mullions.

W (DUNNIKIER ROAD) ELEVATION: dominant gable to centre with 3 traceried tripartite windows in square-headed architraved surrounds at 1st stage, 2 tall double lancet windows above flanking cusped image niche and further small corbelled niche (empty) in ball-finialled gablehead. Bay to left of centre with buttress-flanked steps up to slightly advanced porch with heavily moulded pedimented doorway, empty corbelled image niche and cross finial above, narrow light with stained glass glazing on return to left, tower (see below) behind: lower, recessed transeptal bay to right with steps and flanking dwarf walls up to deeply moulded doorway and narrow light above.

TOWER: 3-stage tower with octagonal spire. 1st stage with porch (see above) to W, narrow light below tripartite window to N, and engaged to E and S. Largely blank 2nd stage with narrow light close to base at W, and traceried window in small square architraved opening close to top at each face; 3rd stage with paired pinnacles at angles and set-back belfry with louvered, traceried openings to each cardinal face below finialled and crocketed octagonal, ashlar roof.

N (VICTORIA ROAD) ELEVATION: 4 trefoil-headed tripartite windows in square-headed surrounds to 1st stage below coped batter giving way to 2nd stage with 2 depressed-arch, 5-light, traceried windows flanking broad dividing pilaster. Advanced tower to outer right, and buttress to left giving way to depressed-arch hall doorway with 2-leaf part-glazed timber doors and lower advanced hall beyond to left with broad hoodmoulded 4-light traceried window below corbelled image niche in gablehead; pagoda-roofed, louvered. timber ventilator set back on roof ridge above.

S ELEVATION: as N elevation but with narrow light to 1st stage and 3-light traceried depressed-arch window to 2nd stage of advanced gabled transept to left, and blocked tripartite window to 1st stage of nave at outer right; low flat-roofed hall extension not included in this listing.

W ELEVATION: piended roof of original hall just visible but largely obscured by extension and surrounding buildings.

Multi-pane, leaded glazing with coloured margins; stained glass light with angel to porch. Small grey slates with terracotta ridge tiles. Ashlar-coped skews (some moulded) with flat skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative fixings to church.

INTERIOR: galleried to 3 sides; timber pews with kneelers (see Notes) to ground, gallery pews later, corniced boarded timber dado; panelled gallery fronts every 4th panel with open fretwork; broad round-headed ashlar arcade with polygonal piers and chancel arch; 2-leaf panelled and part-glazed with multi-pane leaded glass timber doors. Narthex with stairs to tower and transept, each with barley-twist cast-iron balusters; architraved doorcases to right and left lead to nave, centre of wall altered with modern 3-light window onto nave. Depressed-arch doorways to galleries, that to W with organ. Plain panelled reredos and tall dado (see Notes). Boarded timber roof on stone corbels, wall-posts with braces on foliate corbels. Greater hall (to NE) with boarded dado and roof with corbelled wall-posts and decorative cast-iron air vents. Single coloured light to porch with angel, and 3-light memorial window to NE. Belfry accessed from exterior of tower high up at 2nd stage.

BOUNDARY WALLS: coped rubble boundary walls.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Built as a Free Church, the building became St Marie's Roman Catholic Church in 1975. Dunnikier Free Church began with the anti-burghers of 1747 who purchased ground in Mid Street in 1763, and built a church which lasted for 138 years. The early building was largely a voluntary undertaking, with reportedly only ?100 spent on materials. The Dunnikier Road building was opened in 1901 with a dedication service by Rev Dr Stalker of Glasgow; the congregation moved to St Andrews Church in 1967. During the ministry of Rev John McKean, an additional hall was added at a cost of ?400. Reredos and panelling, together with pews with kneelers brought from original St Marie's in 1975.

External Links

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