United Free Church, Main Street, Swinton, Swinton, Scottish Borders

Entry Name: United Free Church, Main Street, Swinton

Listing Name: Main Street, Former Free Church, Now Village Hall, Including Boundary Wall and Piers

Listing Date: 25 September 1998

Category: C

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 392717

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB45743

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200392717

Location: Swinton

County: Scottish Borders

Electoral Ward: Mid Berwickshire

Parish: Swinton

Traditional County: Berwickshire

Tagged with: Church building Church hall

Description

Begun 1859; opened 1860; converted for use as church hall from 1932; village hall later 20th century. Well-detailed gothic style former Free church comprising rectangular-plan, 5-bay nave; square plan tower to S (incomplete spire); gabled porch set behind; single storey vestry at rear. Squared and snecked tooled cream sandstone; sandstone ashlar dressings. Stepped out at base to front; raised base course in part to sides; moulded cill course; sandstone eaves course. Ashlar quoins; long and short surrounds to chamfered openings (trefoil-headed and pointed-arched); sandstone mullions to bipartites; chamfered cills. Out-of-character, flat-roofed toilet block adjoined to front.

SE (MAIN STREET) ELEVATION: projecting nave with 7 regularly spaced, trefoil-headed windows beneath central traceried window (bricked-up); moulded mask-stops to pointed-arched hoodmould; blocked trefoil opening centred in apex; cruciform finial. 4-stage tower recessed to left with narrow opening centred at 2nd stage; flanking chamfered angles with surmounting gablets; clock face at 3rd stage; pointed-arched window at 4th stage beneath finialed gable; incomplete spire.

SW (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: square-plan tower to outer right as above. Projecting gabled porch in subsequent bay to left with steps to pointed-arched entrance at centre; 2-leaf boarded timber door; 2-pane opaque fanlight; moulded mask-stops to hoodmould; surmounting cruciform finial. Bipartite windows in remaining 3 bays recessed to left. Single storey vestry to outer left with steps to boarded timber door in bay to right; bipartite, trefoil-headed window in bay to left.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: blocked rose window centred in nave; trefoil opening aligned above. Projecting vestry adjoined to outer right.

NE (SIDE) ELEVATION: gabled bipartite window breaking eaves in bay to outer left. Regularly-spaced bipartite windows in remaining 4 bays to right.

Replacement glazing to nave; remaining openings predominantly blocked and missing glazing. Grey slate roof (fishscale banding in part); gabletted skewputts; cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: whitewashed sandstone vestibule with 2 pointed-arched, boarded timber (store?) doors to side; decorative iron hinges. Pointed-arched nave entrance comprising 2-leaf boarded timber doors; decorative iron hinges; engaged columns to left and right; architraved hoodmould. NAVE: boarded timber floor; boarded timber dado; false ceiling (original brackets and springers in place). Regularly spaced chamfered timber columns to rear supporting full width timber panelled balcony at 1st floor; part infilled at ground with bar opening at centre. Stage to N. VESTRY: boarded timber door; small fireplace.

BOUNDARY WALL AND PIERS: coped cream sandstone wall enclosing site to Main Street; pyramidal-capped, square-plan piers to outer left and right.

Statement of Interest

No longer in ecclesiastical use. B Group comprises Nos 9-30 The Green (inclusive Nos excluding 12, 16, 25 and 29), the former Free Church, Main Street (now a village hall) and Nos 29-33, 35, 39, 41, 43, 47, 36, 46 and 48 Main Street - see separate list entries. A "...beautiful Free church" (Groome), well-detailed and prominently sited, overlooking the village green. Replacing an existing, much smaller Free church (see separate list entry, 14 Coldstream Road), this new structure was undoubtedly one of the most impressive buildings in the parish - its tall sandstone spire being visible from miles around. Following reunification with the parish church in 1932, it became a church hall for the joint congregation. By the 1950s, it was redundant and subsequently sold to the local authority. It was during this time that the spire was removed after having been deemed unsafe. Despite this, the removal of much of the interior (once able to accommodate

550) and the loss of its original glazing, the church remains one of Swinton's most significant buildings. The addition of a toilet block to its front is unfortunate.

External Links

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