Description

1907. Simple rectangular-plan gothic church with squat 2-stage tower and 4-bay aisless nave. Squared and snecked chlorite-slate rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings. Raised base course, string course and cornice to tower; 2-stage sawtooth-coped angle buttresses. Traceried windows; hoodmoulds with label stops, chamfered reveals and stone mullions.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: broad gabled bay to left with lean-to stone porch, gabled doorpiece with hoodmould, 2-leaf timber doors and arrowslit in gablehead to centre, single lights in flanking bays and further light to left return; full-width traceried window to 2nd stage with taller 3-light window flanked by 2-light windows, all hoodmoulded; tiny paired blind arrowslit in stone-finialled gablehead. Tower (see below) in re-entrant angle to right.

TOWER: 1st stage W with hoodmoulded timber door giving way to 2 small square windows, and single hoodmoulded window to S; string course over with narrow lights also to W and S surmounted by cornice and swept helm roof with decorative cast-iron finial.

N AND S ELEVATIONS: nave elevations each with 4 regularly-disposed windows.

E ELEVATION: broad gabled bay with circular window in gablehead over low lean-to vestry with 3 windows, shouldered stack and boarded timber door on return to left with piended roof.

Largely multi-pane leaded glazing, some with coloured margins; coloured margined glazing to small square windows at tower W and oculus to E. Grey slates. Coped ashlar stack with polygonal cans; ashlar-coped skews with mitre skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative fixings.

INTERIOR: altered but many fine details retained. Suspended false ceiling masking fine hammerbeam roof with stone corbels; gallery on cast-iron columns; boarded dadoes and decoratively-glazed panelled timber doors; some carved architraves; elaborately moulded cast-iron radiators.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATES: low saddleback-coped rubble boundary walls with ironwork gates.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building no longer in use as such. The 1900 union of the Free and United Presbyterian congregations led to the formation of the United Free Church. Those from the original Free Church who opposed the union met in the Town Hall until the opening of this, their new church, on the 8th September, 1907. The church was closed in the late 20th century.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17829679

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

• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)