Description

Reginald Fairlie & Partners, 1957-60; dalle de verre stained glass by Gabriel Loire of Chartres. Basilican-type church with plain rectilinear detail to 5-bay flat-roofed narthex and 6-bay, pitch-roofed nave with low side-aisles. Red sandstone ashlar and red brick. Base course. Stepped, segmentally-arched, voussoired openings. Raked cills and stone and concrete mullions.

NE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical. Tall slightly advanced 3-stage tower to centre bay with steps up to square-headed, part-glazed 2-leaf panelled timber door below statue of St Paul on corbelled base giving way to tall tripartite window, all in tall stepped segmental panel; 3rd stage with small tripartite opening and pedimented gablehead with tall corbelled cross and flat roof behind; each return with wide-centre tripartite (all 3rd stage openings timber-louvered). Lower flanking bays each with segmentally-arched stepped doorway over square-headed door as above, and small tripartite window over. Further set-back brick outer bays, that to left with 2 small narrow lights at ground and taller single light above, that to right with window at ground.

SW ELEVATION: broad gabled elevation with full-height, 9-light, bowed sanctuary window (see stained glass) and low flanking aisles.

NW ELEVATION: projecting gabled side chapel with tall tripartite window in penultimate bay to right, broad horizontally-aligned 5-light clerestorey window to outer right and tall tripartite clerestorey windows to left. Link to presbytery at outer left and single storey, flat-roofed extension in re-entrant angle to right.

SE ELEVATION: variety of elements largely detailed as NW elevation but including additional flat-roofed bay (Chapel of St John Ogilvie) to right.

Mostly abstract stained glass (figurative glass see below). Modern sheet metal roofing material. Deep ashlar-coped skews. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers.

INTERIOR: dark and rectilinear with dramatic colour from stained glass. Nave with shallow-vaulted ceiling, squat brick piers dividing bays, bow-fronted galleries to NE and SE side chapels, timber pews, low side aisles and carved 'Stations of The Cross' below clerestorey windows. Panelled organ housing on polygonal columns to NW side chapel.

STAINED GLASS: by Gabriel Loire. 9-light sanctuary window panels depicting life of St Paul. 3-light window with Virgin and Child to NW. Abstract designs to nave and clerestorey. Baptistry to NW with cupola depicting Dove of Peace (also in dalle de verre style, see Notes).

BOUNDARY WALLS, GATEPIERS, GATES AND RAILINGS: low saddleback-coped brick boundary walls with inset railings and dry-dash boundary walls. Square-section, flat-coped brick gatepiers and decorative ironwork gates.

Statement of Interest

Gabriel Loire's stained glass (the principal reason for the listing of St Paul's) is produced in the 'dalle de verre' (or 'paving stone' glass) style, with thick glass pieces set into concrete 'tracery'. His other commissions for glass include work at the Roman Catholic Archiepiscopal Chapel at Greenhhill Gardens, Edinburgh, and in Glasgow, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Broomhill, and St Augustine's, Milton. To lighten the sanctuary and side chapels, some stained glass has been removed from clerestorey lights to SE and SW side chapels. The adjoining presbytery was converted from Jordanvale House in 1904.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17813445

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

• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)