Fetteresso Parish Church, Bath Street, Stonehaven

Fetteresso Parish Church, Bath Street, Stonehaven

A Grade A listed building designed by John Paterson between 1810 and 1812, altered and enlarged in 1878, with a hall block added to the west in 1970. The interior was partly refurbished by John Smith in 1884, a timber screen was installed in 2002.

The church is a tall, single-storey Gothic structure with a D-shaped plan, featuring a crenellated parapet and octagonal turrets at the springing of the curved front, with a square tower at the centre. It is finished with dry-dash rendering and chamfered stone margins; the north elevation displays squared and snecked rubble with dressed margins and voussoirs. The base course has a corbelled crenellated parapet. Pointed-arch openings throughout are fitted with timber Y-traceried fenestration, predominantly featuring diamond-pattern leaded glazing with coloured margins.

The main entrance tower is a dominant feature on the south elevation, projecting at the centre with diagonal angle buttresses rising to the third stage. The first stage contains a 2-leaf vertically-boarded timber door (replaced in 1995) with large decorative ironwork hinges and a deep timber-traceried pointed-arch fanlight with diamond-pattern leaded glazing and modern wall-mounted carriage lamps. The second and third stages have single windows, with the upper stage predominantly timber-louvered. A corbelled crenellated ashlar parapet and angle bartizans with blind arrowslits and polygonal stone caps crown the tower. Windows at the centre of each stage at the returns are blind on the first and second stages, louvered and glazed on the third stage.

The south principal elevation features single large windows to each curved bay flanking the entrance tower, flanked in turn by squat octagonal turrets with windows on alternating faces at the first and second stages; those at the second stage are blind where abutting the curved bay. A tower to the right includes an additional boarded timber door to its north face at first-stage level.

The diagonally-buttressed, three-stage tower features a band course between the second and third stages, quoin strips at the reduced third stage, and corbelled angle bartizans. The turrets have dividing courses between their stages, with chamfered arrises to the north.

The east elevation is a three-bay arrangement with a 2-leaf vertically-boarded timber door at the centre ground level, windows in the flanking bays and regular fenestration at the gallery floor above. A diagonal buttress with pyramidal stone cap projects to the outer right angle.

The west elevation is modern, comprising a two-storey, near rectangular-plan rendered church hall and offices adjoining the church, with a south entrance elevation and glazed doorpiece.

The north elevation is an altered composition of varied elements including a crenellated single-storey rubble vestry with part-blocked trefoil-headed windows and a boarded timber door under a leaded fanlight.

The roof is covered in grey slates. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers are dated 1810.

The interior is a fine galleried space with fixed timber pews. The porch has an encaustic-tiled floor and mural monuments, including First and Second World War memorials, a stone slab (possibly a font) and a bell dated 1736, both from the Old Fetteresso Church. A twenty-first century timber screen leads to the body of the church with vertically-boarded timber dadoes and a timber horseshoe gallery supported on slender painted columns with Corinthian capitals, below which are stepped timber pews. Painted ceiling roses are visible throughout. The timber altar table and communion chair are fitted with earlier panelling on the chair reading 'I M P F 1682'. Steps flanking and leading to a decorative timber pulpit are provided on either side. The organ above, installed in 1876, is by Willis of London. Diagonally-boarded timber doors and gallery parapet panels complete the interior joinery. Coloured glass includes a 1902 memorial window to Lizzie Lindsay Wood depicting lilies by Benson & Co, Glasgow, and windows depicting St Clare and St Francis by Crear McCartney dating from 1990.

The boundary comprises low saddleback-coped ashlar quadrant walls and polygonal ashlar piers with cornices and shallow polygonal caps supporting 2-leaf decorative ironwork vehicular gates and inset railings. Semicircular-coped rubble boundary walls complete the enclosure.