Congregational Church, Princes Street West, Helensburgh

Congregational Church, Princes Street West, Helensburgh

This is a Grade B listed building comprising two churches on different axes. The mid-19th century church was converted to a hall following the construction of a new church designed by John Honeyman in 1883, which adjoins the earlier building at right angles to its west wall.

The Mid-19th Century Church

The original church follows an east-west axis with a rectangular plan in the Early English style. It is built of cream and pinkish sandstone rubble with stugged cream sandstone dressings. The building is entered through a lop-sided gable elevation facing west onto James Street, with a bell tower at the north-west angle.

The west elevation on James Street features a later 19th century open timber porch (now boarded-in with a plain door) at the centre, with posts on stone bases and a half-piend roof with swept bracketed eaves, fishscale slates, and a finial. Small lancet windows flank the porch, above which is a stepped string course. Taller paired lancets with cusped tracery rise above the entrance, with an oculus to the gable head. The bell tower rising from the left angle has a lancet window to the west, a loop window to the north, paired louvered lancets to the belfry, a corbel cornice, and a coped parapet.

The north elevation on Sinclair Street contains five bays. A trefoil window appears at the outer right, with the remaining four bays divided by buttresses, each featuring a lancet window and a doorway below the window at the outer left. The south elevation mirrors the north with four bays, and incorporates a vestry block projecting to the outer right in the re-entrant angle between the old and new churches. Both side elevations are divided by off-set buttresses with saw-tooth coping and gablets.

The roof is covered in grey slate with ashlar coped skews and gablet skewputts. Windows contain frosted glass.

The 1883 Church

The new church, designed by John Honeyman, runs on a north-south axis with its west side elevation incorporating the rear wall of the earlier church. It is a rectangular-plan, asymmetrical Gothic church with a nave and side aisle to the west. The entrance porch is positioned at the north-west angle with a doorway facing west. The building is constructed of stugged, snecked cream sandstone with ashlar dressings, an off-set and moulded base course to the north and west, and chamfered arrises. Lancet windows and off-set, saw-tooth buttresses feature throughout.

The north elevation on Sinclair Street contains a recessed entrance porch at the outer right with a westward-facing doorway. The north gable elevation displays a seven-bay pointed-arch blind arcade with lights to three bays at the centre. Above this rises a tall four-light pointed-arch window with geometric tracery, flanked by blind lancet windows with colonnettes and a hoodmould course stepped down to the west.

The west elevation features a gabled porch with angle buttresses and a pointed-arch doorway with moulded and foliate moulding to the splayed reveals, flanked by clustered colonnettes. A vesica above encloses an uncarved sandstone panel with a moulded surround. A foliate course lies below the skews. A two-light pointed-arch window appears on the return to the left (north), with a lean-to aisle to the right of the porch and the angle of the earlier church adjoining to the right.

The east elevation includes a canted stair tower at the outer right with a lancet window in its east face and a polygonal, finialled slate roof breaking the eaves. Three two-light pointed-arch windows light the nave, with a lancet window to the chancel at the outer left.

The south elevation (liturgically the east) is marked by a wheel window. The roof is covered in grey slate with lead-pane glazing throughout.

Interior

The interior features a nave divided from the aisle by a four-bay arcade of polished granite clustered columns. A timber roof is supported on stone corbels. A fine organ is positioned to the south below the wheel window.

Boundary Features

Rubble boundary walls enclose the site. A square-plan ashlar gateway at the corner of Princes and James Streets features pyramidal-capped piers. Cream sandstone piers surmounted by iron lanterns mark the gateway to Sinclair Street.