Highland Parish Church, Argyll Street, Campbeltown

Highland Parish Church, Argyll Street, Campbeltown

This is a two-storey classical church of rectangular plan, designed by George Dempster of Greenock and built between 1803 and 1808. It comprises seven bays across and four bays in depth, with a distinctive three-tier entrance and bell tower added to the centre of the northeast principal front in 1884. The walls are roughcast with droved ashlar margins and details, punctuated by a base course, string courses, and a substantial eaves cornice. Droved ashlar margins frame all windows, doors and corners, with projecting cills throughout.

The tower itself is a prominent three-stage structure. Its base course is substantial, with stone steps leading to a round-arched entrance door. A band course and cill course mark the first floor, where a round-arched window sits at the centre. At the second floor, a principal cornice is followed by a subsidiary cornice above. The upper stage has a plain base supporting round-arched openings fitted with louvres, framed by pilasters on the angled corners. An entablature and cornice above features cutaway corners, supporting a parapet. Each face of the parapet carries a lugged, architraved panel crowned by a segmental pediment with a ball final. Octagonal spires rise at the four corners, each mounted on a corniced base with fluted pilasters and ball finials at their apexes.

The northwest entrance elevation presents three centre bays that are slightly advanced, crowned by a pedimented gable with plain acroteria, though the tower obscures the centre bay. The outer bays are also slightly advanced, featuring gallery doors at ground level with stone steps, and blank ashlar plaques above these doors.

The northwest side elevation displays four bays, with a projecting gallery stair tower advanced at the outer left bay. A single round-arched window lights the stair landing on the southwest face. Round-arched windows appear at the second and third bays in regular spacing. An entrance door serves the ground floor between bays three and four.

The southeast elevation mirrors the layout of the northwest elevation.

The southwest rear elevation is symmetrical across four bays. Round-arched windows occur at ground and first floor in the outer bays, with larger round-arched windows serving the inner bays. A single-storey wing projects from the ground floor at the second bay, punctuated by two narrow windows in its northwest wall.

Windows throughout are 31-pane timber sash and case with radial glazing to the upper sashes, supplemented by fixed lights of matching pattern. Leaded fixed lights with coloured panes flank the pulpit area. The principal entrance features a twelve-panel, two-leaf oak door with a decorative latch and six-pane fanlight in an arch-head above. Vertically-boarded timber doors with iron latches serve other locations. The roof is grey slate in a piended form over the hall, gallery stairs and rear wing, with cast-iron gutters and downpipes throughout.

The interior presents a striking horseshoe-galleried layout, overlaid with a later decorative scheme. A timber gallery, supported on cast-iron columns with capitals and corniced, panelled front, is advanced at its centre above a raked timber floor with horizontally-boarded timber pews. Modern oak ply partitions infill the space below the gallery at the southwest and northwest corners. The ground floor retains horizontally-boarded timber pews. A modern oak ply organ loft occupies the southwest wall, fronted by a semi-octagonal panelled pine pulpit with balustraded timber steps. Cross-bound timber doors with iron latches and handles access the gallery stairs, which are symmetrically disposed at the north and west corners with timber handrails affixed to the walls.

The vestibule contains a two-leaf door with leaded glass depicting shields within a pointed-arched, roll-moulded surround. The outer vestibule features droved ashlar basket-arched recesses, one of which displays a marble bust on a plinth inscribed "Caraid nan Gael". The inner vestibule is accessed by two-leaf vertically-boarded doors with glazed uppers and brass handles, centred above by an 11-pane radial fanlight.

The boundary treatment comprises random rubble walls to the rear southwest elevation, with a lean-to brick store at its centre featuring a vertically-boarded timber door. A random rubble wall encloses the southeast boundary, whilst the northwest is enclosed by modern fencing. The principal gatepiers are of square ashlar with corniced bases and domed caps, surmounted by metal lamp standards with glass globes. Decorative two-leaf wrought-iron gates complete the entrance.