Ferryhill United Free Church, Ferryhill Road, Aberdeen

Ferryhill United Free Church, Ferryhill Road, Aberdeen

Ferryhill United Free Church is an early gothic, basilica-plan church designed by Duncan McMillan between 1873 and 1874. Side galleries were added by D and J R McMillan in 1896. The building is constructed in tooled coursed grey granite with finely finished margins, featuring a base course and contrasting pale grey granite band courses. The exterior is characterised by pointed-arched openings, long and short quoins, and an eaves course.

The principal north elevation is near-symmetrical and gabled. A gableted porch, added in 1883, is advanced to the centre of the ground floor. It features a moulded pointed arch supported on dwarf columns with stiff-leaf capitals, and a decoratively glazed trefoil piercing in the tympanum. A 2-leaf boarded timber door with decorative hinges sits within a shouldered doorway with a chevroned lintel. Small windows flank the porch to left and right. A large rose window with cusped geometric sandstone tracery is centred in the gablehead above, with a stone finial to the apex. The roof sweeps down over a slightly stepped back aisle bay to the left, which features a bipartite window with a roundel above. A square-plan, 3-stage tower adjoins to the outer right, with a bipartite window to the centre and right return. A shouldered doorway in a relieving arch containing a boarded timber door is set into the left return at the 1st stage. The 2nd stage has windows to each elevation, while the 3rd stage features louvred bipartite openings to each elevation. Gableted clock faces sit between pinnacles at the base of an octagonal stone spire. Small triangular lucarnes with trefoil details appear halfway up the spire, and a gilded crucifix crowns the apex.

The west elevation is asymmetrical, with the tower adjoining to the outer left. Regularly spaced bipartite windows in buttressed bays run across this face, though these are predominantly obscured by the adjacent church hall.

The south elevation features a semi-circular apse at the centre of a gabled chancel, with 2 pairs of bipartite windows and windows flanking the apse to left and right. A blind bull's-eye opening is set in the gablehead. A gabled wing advanced to the outer left has stone steps leading to a glazed door.

The east elevation has 4 buttressed bays to the right, each with bipartite windows. A gabled 2-bay transept is advanced to the left, with a gableted porch to the centre of the ground floor containing a window. A shouldered doorway with a boarded timber door is set into the right return, with tall lancet windows flanking to left and right. A bull's-eye opening sits in the gablehead, surmounted by an ironwork finial.

Throughout, the church is furnished with predominantly timber framed leaded diamond-pane windows, with stained glass to the rose window and south windows. The roof is of grey slate with a tiled ridge, coped stone skews with simple skewputts, and cast-iron rainwater goods.

Interior

The interior features a pitch pine polygonal section wagon roof spanning the aisless nave, with semi-circular cross braces and diagonally boarded panelling. Openwork cusped panels appear at intersections. Behind the chancel arch is an apse with a diagonally boarded panelled pine ceiling featuring a quatrefoil cornice and pendant.

Side galleries were added in 1896 in identical style, supported on elaborate cast-iron columns with mannered stiff-leaf capitals, paired timber brackets, and chevroned lower margins. Gallery fronts feature quatrefoil panelling. A pulpit is centred at the apse, approached by flights of steps to left and right with decorative cast-iron balusters. An organ dating from 1903 occupies its original position at the centre of the apse. A World War I communion table is also present.

Church Hall

The adjoining church hall dates from 1885, with extensions added in 1894 and 1961. It is built of random granite rubble with ladder snecking and features stop-chamfered angles to the north. A single storey crenellated entrance porch to the east, positioned between the church and hall, contains a 2-leaf boarded timber door with iron hinges and a letterbox fanlight. Predominantly 3-light timber windows light the interior. A grey slate roof with triangular ventilators to the west sits above the main structure, with flat-roofed harled additions to the south.

Setting and Boundaries

Low 20th-century granite boundary walls with flat coping enclose the site; railings have been removed. Rough-faced granite gatepiers to the northwest feature pyramidal caps.