Walkerburn Parish Church, Galashiels Road, Walkerburn, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

Description

1875; enlarged by Robert Mathison, 1891; pipe organ by Ingram and Co (Edinburgh) installed 1896; stained glass by Ballantine and Gardiner and Percy Bacon & Brothers (see below); gallery and W interior remodelled, 1982. Former 5-bay, cruciform-plan vernacular gothic church with paired porches, buttresses and semi-octagonal gallery tower adjoining nave; chancel to E and small gabled anti-room to rear. Coursed rock-faced whinstone with pale sandstone stugged and vermiculated quoins and dressings with polished angle margins and jambs. High base course with stugged details. Skew gabled roof to main church with paired saddle-roofed circular windows to N and S, piended tower and pitched-roof porches.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: to centre, 3 tall arched lights with dividing buttresses, outer flank buttresses absorbed into later porches. Single storey, gabled entrance porch to left of centre with architraved surround and 2-leaf arched timber doors and square stone with trefoil detail to gablehead; small arched window with coloured margins to right return, left return adjoining 2-storey semi-octagonal stair tower with door to left and segmental-headed arched window to 3 sides of 1st floor. To right of centre, similar (though shorter) porch with boarded timber door and date stone (1891) to gablehead. To roof of nave, pair of gabled timber dormers with bracketed overhanging eaves and round window. To right, advanced gable end of transept with stepped 3-light arched window to centre, moulded roundel with trefoil detail to gablehead surmounted by stone cross within round surround.

W ELEVATION: symmetrical gable end with high base course, 3 regularly placed arched windows with drip sills (to ground floor) with stepped buttresses rising between and flanking 3 arched lights (former gallery window), now blind round window to stepped gablehead with shouldered gabled bellcote and plain wrought-iron weather-vane surmounting.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: to left, gable end of transept with stepped 3-light arched window to centre, blind gablehead surmounted by stone cross within round surround; single stained glass window to left of nave with advanced single storey, single bay, anti-room to right with fenestration to each return. Rest of elevation not seen, but stack rising at right. To roof of nave, pair of gabled timber dormers with bracketed overhanging eaves and round window.

E ELEVATION: symmetrical elevation with later advanced chancel gable to centre with pair of arched lights (interior now concealed behind organ) and blind returns; adjoining original higher advanced chancel gable to rear with single stained glass light to flanks of later gable, stone cross within round surround to gablehead, blind returns; blind walls of transepts to left and right.

3 arched plain opaque lights with coloured glass margins to chancel. Stained glass windows by Ballantine and Gardiner including (to main body of church): to left of chancel, HE THAT SOWETH THE GOOD SEED IS THE SON OF MAN (memorial to Henry Ballantyne, founder of Walkerburn, erected by his daughter Mary); to right of chancel, THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS and THE GOOD SHEPHERD (in remembrance of Robert Milne Ballantyne (died 1892) from his sister Janet); also ST AGNES AND THE LAMB (in memory of Agnes Ballantyne, died 1902) by Percy Bacon & Brothers, 1905. Stained glass in former west gallery (by Ballantine and Gardiner): memorial windows to David Ballantyne (died 1912) and his wife Isabella Milne (died 1907) comprising 3 arched lights portraying the Transfiguration with angels to bottom right and left holding HONOUR THE FATHER and MOTHER scrolls. Pitched slate roof with stone ridge tiles and lead valleys and flashings; plain stone skews with moulded putts of varying designs, cross within roundel finials to gableheads of chancel, small stone stalked finial to tower. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods. Tall narrow ashlar gablehead stack to rear anti-room with single can.

INTERIOR: carved stone corbels supporting scissor brace roof; 3 sections of varnished pine pews with side aisles in nave; octagonal gothic pulpit and circa 1945 communion table; vast stencilled pipe organ housed in arch of chancel. Memorial plaque to the Rev. James S Goldie in north wall (marble with classical pediment). Stone stairs to tower with painted wrought-iron balusters and polished mahogany handrail.

BOUNDARY WALLS: pair of random whinstone rubble walls (one following main road, other rising with hillside drive) with segmental copestones and entrance piers with squared caps.

Statement of Interest

Part of a B-Group with Holly House, the former Walkerburn Parish Church manse (adjacent to NE). Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Until the middle of the 19th century, the only trace of habitation in this area was Caberston farmhouse and steading. The village grew up around the textile mills of Tweedvale and Tweedholm of Henry Ballantyne the founder of the village. He was also responsible for the earliest workers' housing and laying out the village we see today. By his death in 1865, Walkerburn was a flourishing manufacturing village with a population of just under 800 people. The company and the welfare of its staff were passed to his five sons until 1870 when 3 of them left to run a mill in Innerleithen. David and John Ballantyne remained in charge of the Walkerburn mills and set about improving not only their own housing, but also the amenities of the village. Until 1875, religious services had been held in the village school. This was not really convenient as the school was used for all village activities. The minister (the Rev. Alexander Williamson), David and John Ballantyne and others in the village managed to have Walkerburn converted into a parish quoad sacra and erected a church (later extended) and manse (listed separately). The architect/builder is believed to be Robert Mathison, a local man, who was responsible for many buildings in the area; he extended the church in 1891. The interior of the church was altered towards the end of the 20th century to provide 2 halls where the west gallery was found. The church is still in use but used on a rotational basis with Traquair and Innerleithen churches. Listed as a good example of a later 19th century parish church with an especially fine set of Ballantine stained glass windows (one of the most complete in Scotland) with a strong local connection (Ballantyne family).

External Links

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