Description

Church dated 1843; remodelled and extended 1872. Roughly T-plan, plain, gable-fronted church with piend-roofed transepts and some Gothic detailing. Roughly coursed whinstone with painted, droved sandstone ashlar dressings; tabbed margins and raised cills to N, S and E elevations of church; squared yellow sandstone with tooled ashlar dressings and raised cills elsewhere. Long-and-short quoins. Pointed-arched windows in chamfered margins to W and E elevations; bipartite, stone-mullioned windows to transepts; predominantly regularly placed rectangular windows with central vertical glazing bars elsewhere.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: Gabled W elevation with central timber-panelled door and multi-pane rectangular fanlight in chamfered, corniced architrave with frieze dated 1843; Y-traceried, transomed window above; flanking lancet windows; hoodmoulded margins; pinnacled gable. 4-bay E elevation with two Y-traceried windows to centre and small rectangular windows to left and right. S elevation with secondary door at outer left and single-storey, gabled session house/vestry wing with gabled porch in re-entrant angle.

Predominantly lightly stained glass in fixed, rectangular-paned, leaded lights; stained-glass windows in E elevation; predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows to session house. Grey slate roof. Ashlar-coped, kneelered skews. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: T-plan layout with panel-fronted sloping galleries over three sides supported on slender, octagonal-section cast-iron columns. Tongue and groove panelling to dado height; plaster walls above; plain pine pews. Timber side stair to bow-fronted timber pulpit with blind Gothic arcading flanked by linenfold panels; early-20th-century timber Binns organ behind. Gothic-style timber Communion table, chair and font. Timber-panelled doors. Plain timber-boarded floors. Decorative cornices; flat ceiling with 3 large, circular, decorative plasterwork vents. Stone stair to galleries, with timber balustrade. Lincrusta frieze in vestry.

HALLS: Dated 1896; W addition, late 20th century. Gabled block attached to SE corner of church on steeply sloping site. Squared yellow sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. Single-storey S (Brougham Place) elevation with 2-leaf timber-boarded door and 2-pane fanlight in roll-moulded, hoodmoulded, segmental-arched surround to left, and secondary timber-boarded door to outer right. 2 storeys elsewhere. Predominantly bipartite stone-mullioned windows. Grey slate roof; ashlar-coped skews; gablehead stack with string course. INTERIOR: Timber-panelled doors throughout. Timber dado panelling. Corridor with services off at ground floor. Main hall at 1st floor with queen-strut roof with chamfered detailing and ornamental vents to timber-panelled flat central ceiling.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Trinity Church is a good example of an earlier-19th-century church, and is situated in an elevated position close to the centre of Hawick.

Originally known as East Bank Church, and built for the East End Burgher Congregation who had previously worshipped in a meeting house on the High Street at the foot of what is now Brougham Place, the church opened on 30 April 1843. Some sources misattribute it to William Burn; however, it bears no stylistic resemblance to his work, and was for a secession congregation, whilst Burn designed for the established church. Confusion seems to have arisen from the 'Church at Hawick, 1842' in T L Donaldson's list of Burn's principal works (RIBA Transactions, 1870, pp125-8), which undoubtedly refers to the Old Parish Church on Buccleuch Road (demolished 1992), known to be by Burn and similar in date to East Bank Church.

Initially a simple preaching box, East Bank Church was extended in 1872 to form a T-plan with vestry. It was redecorated by William Jardine in 1892; the halls, costing £990, were added in 1896; and the organ case, designed by Alexander Inglis, was built in the first decade of the 20th century. It was renamed Trinity Church after the 1959 union of the congregations of East Bank, St Andrew's and St John's.

A manse built in 1837 remained on the site, just south-west of the church, until at least the time of the 4th Edition OS map (1951), but was later demolished. The old meeting house was used by other occupants until its demolition in the later 19th century.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77780954

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

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6