Chryston Parish Church, Main Street, Chryston, Stepps, Chryston and Muirhead, North Lanarkshire

Entry Name: Chryston Parish Church, Main Street, Chryston

Listing Name: Chryston, Main Street, Chryston Parish Church (Church of Scotland) Including Graveyard, Boundary Walls and Gatepiers

Listing Date: 16 September 2003

Category: C

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 396994

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB49465

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200396994

Location: Cadder

County: North Lanarkshire

Electoral Ward: Stepps, Chryston and Muirhead

Parish: Cadder

Traditional County: Lanarkshire

Tagged with: Church building

Description

David Thomson & Robert Turnbull, 1878. Gothic, broad-plan church with wallhead to S (street) elevation and landmark square-plan tower to SW angle; church linked to substantial 2-storey hall to NW by Davis Duncan Architects, 2003. Snecked and tooled squared rubble; coursed rubble to N; ashlar dressings; base course; string course to entrance elevation. Geometric tracery window over main entrance; plate tracery wheel window to E elevation. Gothic arched windows in breaking eaves gabled dormers to N and S elevations. U-plan gallery and hammerbeam roof to interior.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: gable end. Central moulded gothic arched doorway with plain stiff-leaf columnettes and head-stopped hoodmould; 5 narrow steps up to plain 2-leaf timber boarded doors with decorative ironwork hinges; all set within slightly advanced splayed porch with pitched roof and carved crucifix finial. Gothic arched windows with chamfered openings flanking porch. Geometric tracery window set within label-stopped hoodmould above. Apsidal 2-storey stair tower to left. (Church hall linked to stair tower projecting to far left.) Slightly advanced 4-stage tower to right: plain 1st stage with small circular light (blocked, 2003); shouldered 2nd stage with hoodmoulded lancet window; long 3rd stage with small lancet window with round clockface above, separated by shallow projecting ledge; 4th stage bellcote with plate traceried louvered openings; broach stone spire with decorative cast-iron finial. String course linking towers and main elevation, stepped above central porch.

S (STREET) ELEVATION: 6-bays (arranged 1-4-1) with 2-bay single storey vestry and session house to far right. Slightly advanced 4-stage tower to left, same treatment as at W except for pointed-arched chamfered doorway with moulded rectangular door opening, blind trefoil carving to tympanum at 1st stage. 4 bipartite pointed-segmental arched ground floor windows with gothic arched windows in breaking eaves gabled dormers separated by 3 shouldered buttresses (added in 1987 to reinforce bulging walls). Single pointed arched window recessed to right hand bay. Door and bipartite windows to single storey vestry and session house to far right.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. This church was built on the original site of the Chapel of Ease erected in 1780 on land formerly belonging to James Gray Snr of Wamflet. The graveyard was established in 1826 on land donated by the proprietor of Millbrae House (to NE of site). After approximately 30 years all the lairs were sold and a direct extension of the graveyard was not thought suitable. As the congregation grew it was deemed necessary to erect a larger church building. The appointed architects were David Thomson (c.1830-1910) and Robert Turnbull (?1839-1905). Turnbull was the successor to Alexander Greek Thomson's Glasgow practice and had taken Robert Turnbull into partnership from 1876 to 1883. The church clock was installed by R & W Sorley, Glasgow in 1884. The stained glass wheel window to the E was gifted by Mrs Agnes Kaye Gray in memory of Robert Kaye of Millbrae and her mother Bertha Aitken. The church was built to accommodate 818 parishoners (486 on the ground and 332 in the gallery). The total cost of the church and contents was #3,920 pounds and it was officially opened on 4 August 1878. The original pulpit and the circa 1902 organ casings were removed in 1974; the pulpit was replaced by that from St Stephen's Church, Cambridge Street, Glasgow (then due for demolition). In 1982 repair work was deemed necessary as the S and N walls were found to be bulging. By 1987 the repairs were complete and had resulted in the reinforcement of roof struts with steel brackets and the addition of masonry buttresses to the N and S elevations. Chryston Parish Church is one of the few remaining 19th century buildings of note in this small village and acts as a distinctive landmark to the area. The interior fixtures and fittings are of good quality and design, in particular the U-plan gallery and the hammerbeam roof which has been used to great decorative effect. Although the church has been extended to the N to include the church hall, this recent design has not unduly : affected the main aspect of the church from the road. The distintictive hall by Glasgow practice, Duncan Davis is a 2-storey, Z-plan building with diagonally opposed block-faced apsidal towers (NE and SW). It displays glazed and smooth render panels, deep overhanging eaves with long metal brackets and a grooved metal rounded roof. To the E there is also a 3-bay, single storey timber ambulatory fronting the N elevation of church.

External Links

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