St Mary's And St Peter's Episcopal Church, Provost Scott's Road, Montrose

St Mary's and St Peter's Episcopal Church, Provost Scott's Road, Montrose

A large cruciform church designed by John Henderson in 1858, with a chancel and side chapel added in 1926–27 and a porch by H O Tarbolton in 1937. The building is executed in the Decorated Gothic style, constructed of pink sandstone ashlar with squared and coursed facing and stugged finish. A battered band course runs around the ground floor with chamfered margins and battered cills. A stone spire rises from the tower.

The west elevation features a gable with a stone gabled porch at ground level, containing a pointed arch entrance with hoodmould and two-leaf nailed doors fitted with large decorative wrought-iron hinges, above which is a carved cross. Paired lancet windows appear in the porch returns. The main gable above displays a large pointed arch window with hoodmould, featuring five lights with cusped geometrical tracery, flanked by staged buttresses.

The south elevation contains the side chapel to the right with two paired windows, and a single window in the chancel set back further right. A gable of the transept projects to the left. The tower stands to the left within a re-entrant angle, rising square for two storeys with angle buttresses that rise to a broach spire above the third storey. A doorway opens in the west return, with a louvred cusped-headed window above and paired windows at the second storey. A blocked pointed arch doorway with a two-light cusped tracery window above occupies the south face, with paired windows with cusped heads at the second storey. Small pointed arch windows light the base of the spire to the south and west. The nave to the left displays paired lancets at ground level and a traceried pointed arch window in the wallhead gable above.

The north elevation shows a piended vestry to the left with an entrance at centre and a lancet to the right; a small two-light square-headed window appears to the left, with a larger window in the west return. The transept to the right contains two gables, the left one larger with paired lancets and the right one with a two-light cusped tracery window, a pointed arch entrance in the west return with a nailed door bearing decorative wrought-iron hinges, and a small cusped-headed window above. The nave to the right has paired lancets at ground level and a traceried pointed arch window in the wallhead gable above.

The east elevation presents a gabled chancel at centre with two high-set pointed arch two-light windows featuring circular tracery in the head, and a large circular window in the gablehead with circular tracery within. A vestry to the right contains three small two-light square-headed windows beneath the eaves. The side chapel's gable to the left remains blank.

The roofs are pitched in grey slate with stone skews, gablet skewputts, and small stone cross finials on the north-facing gable; a large stone cross surmounts the east gable. Windows throughout feature leaded lights and stained glass in the principal lancet windows.

The interior retains the original entrance with deep mouldings and shafted jambs, though the doors are later two-leaf insertions. Walls are rendered and painted. A fine white stone reredos dominates the chancel, featuring two arched niches with carved figures flanking a raised central arched section containing a painted and gilded triptych, with four angels surmounting the flanking pilasters. The side chapel contains a marble and gilded timber altar beneath a panel vaulted ceiling with decorative mouldings and emblems. Two pipe organs with cases are installed. Fine figurative stained glass depicting saints, apostles and gospel writers appears over the altar and in the principal lancets.

The churchyard is a square enclosure formed by rubble walls of an original chapel of 1722. Later ashlar gatepiers, banded with ornate corniced pyramidal caps topped with tall leafed finials, flank a lantern overthrow supported on a scroll-decorated wrought-iron arch, with later steel gates. Numerous 19th-century gravestones remain, alongside some much-eroded 18th-century examples, with enclosures upon the east wall.