Carden Place United Free Church, 6 Carden Place, Aberdeen

Carden Place United Free Church, Aberdeen

A cruciform gothic church designed by Robert Wilson of Ellis and Wilson in 1882, with a distinctive two-tower facade. The building was originally single storey with basement, but was converted to two storeys with basement in 1990 when it underwent internal remodelling to offices by Michael Gilmour Associates.

The church is constructed of tooled coursed grey granite ashlar with contrasting light grey long and short dressings, finely finished to margins. The base course and basement are rough-faced and battered, with chamfered reveals to pointed-arched openings. The building features sandstone traceried windows, string courses with hoodmoulds, gableted angle buttresses, and an eaves cornice with blocking course.

The principal south elevation is asymmetrical, dominated by a gabled central bay flanked by square-plan towers. Two flights of swept steps lead up to the central doorway, which has a balustraded parapet and is flanked by gableted piers topped with decorative iron lamp standards with glass globes. The door surround is finely finished with gableted buttresses and clustered colonnettes with decorative caps set in gablets. The doorway itself is deeply chamfered and pointed-arched, now fitted with a pair of flat-arched modern glass doors flanked by polished pink colonnettes and supporting decorative brackets. The tympanum contains quatrefoil and shouldered stained glass windows, with trefoil-headed blind openings in the gablehead above and a decorative cross at the apex. A tall two-light stained glass traceried window sits above, flanked by single windows, with a quatrefoil set in the gablehead and a gableted finial to the apex.

The right tower is a five-stage engaged tower. The basement has two narrow lancets, with a single lancet centred above at the first stage. The first stage also features a chamfered doorway to its right return, with a decoratively shouldered surround and cusped fanlight now containing a modern glass door, with a pair of windows above. The second stage has a pair of windows with a narrow lancet centred above on each elevation. The squat third stage has three narrow lancets on each elevation, set back in individual arches supported on paired colonnettes. The fourth stage features tall louvred lancets with cusped tracery flanked by two blind lancets on each elevation, with a decorative paterae frieze below a dentil-moulded cornice. The octagonal fifth stage has a spire, with a pair of narrow lancets to each gableted facade, enclosed by four pyramidal roofed pinnacles at the angles, with decoratively tooled bands to the stone spire and an iron finial to the apex.

The left tower is a four-stage engaged tower with an octagonal pinnacle through the first and second stages to its outer left angle. The first stage has bipartite windows, while the second stage has a single window with a narrow lancet above. The third stage features a pair of louvred lancets with a gablet to the left return. The fifth stage is gabled, with three narrow lancets and an iron finial to the apex.

The east elevation is asymmetrical, comprising a five-bay section with a three-bay block adjoining to the right. The tower (described above) stands to the outer left. The three buttressed bays to the left have three windows each at basement floor, with two-light traceried windows above and gableted piers to the eaves blocking course. A gabled shallow transept, slightly advanced to the right, features a three-light traceried window to the centre with three narrow lancets centred in the gablehead and a stone finial to the apex. The piend-roofed three-bay block to the outer right has a shouldered window to the basement of the leftmost bay, with a bipartite window with oculus above in a relieving arch. A gableted porch stands at the re-entrant angle to the right, with a decoratively shouldered doorway with trefoil-headed fanlight, iron finial, and modern glass door, plus a window to the right return. The centre bay has a window to the first floor, and the rightmost bay has a pair of windows to the ground floor with a decorative tripartite window above, breaking the eaves with a gablet, with an arrowslit opening inset and an iron finial to the apex.

The north elevation is near-symmetrical but predominantly obscured by a piend-roofed addition at ground and basement floors. A gableted bay to the centre terminates in a shouldered stack, with a window to the basement and principal floors and an arrowslit opening set in the gablehead. Regular fenestration flanks this to the left, while the bay to the right is blank. Behind the addition sits a curved apse with stained glass windows under the eaves to the centre of the gablehead, with a narrow lancet above and a stone finial to the apex.

The west elevation is asymmetrical, comprising five bays with a tower to the outer right (described above). Two-light traceried windows occupy each of the three bays to the right, with gableted piers to the eaves blocking course on each bay. A gabled shallow transept, slightly advanced to the left, contains a three-light traceried window to the centre with three narrow lancets centred in the gablehead and a stone finial to the apex.

Some original leaded and stained glass windows survive, though modern plate-glass windows have been installed to the west, east elevations and the addition to the north. The roof is finished in grey slate with lead ridges, coped stone skews with moulded skewputts, and coped granite stacks with circular cans. A gablehead stack stands to the rear of the south-west tower, with two octagonal stacks flanking the gable to the north and a gablehead stack to the addition. Cast-iron rainwater goods run throughout.

The interior features an entrance porch to the south with a decoratively tiled floor, boarded timber below the dado rail, and a coffered plaster ceiling with foliate capitals to colonnettes and brackets supporting the doorways. A stair to the east has decoratively twisted iron balusters. The former nave and aisles were remodelled in 1990 to form two floors. A fine hammerbeam roof with crown-post details and a dentil-moulded cornice survive.

Squat square-plan granite gatepiers stand to the south-east of the church, with decorative pyramidal caps, flanked by coped granite walls surmounted by simple railings. A low granite wall surmounted by decorative iron railings to the east encloses the basement.