St Catherine's Argyle Church, Grange Road, Edinburgh

St Catherine's Argyle Church, Grange Road, Edinburgh

Designed by Patrick Wilson and built in 1866, this is a symmetrical Continental Gothic church arranged on a T-plan. The building comprises a nave with transepts, a projecting octagonal belfry positioned in the south-west re-entrant angle, a truncated square section tower base to the south-east (never completed), and single-storey offices and church hall adjoining the main structure.

The church is constructed in squared and snecked Craigmillar sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. A base course runs along the building, and a decorative carved eaves course emphasises the south gable. Architectural detailing includes contrasting pink granite colonettes and nook-shafts throughout, with foliate capitals and label-stops. Offset gablet-capped angle buttresses with panelled upper sections characterise the external walls, and pointed-arch windows are a recurrent feature.

The south-facing nave elevation has a gabled entrance with three gabled ashlar panels at ground level featuring cusping detail. A broad pointed-arch door to the centre is flanked by paired colonettes with a double fleuron studded and moulded surround above. The gablehead contains a quatrefoil, and two-leaf panelled doors with a blinded fanlight serve the entrance. Windows in the flanking bays are set within single colonettes and decorative surrounds. A broad hoodmoulded window with geometric tracery and colonettes sits above, with a vesica placed at the gablehead.

The western return elevation to the nave contains an octagonal tower in the re-entrant angle. Two narrow bays here are divided by a buttress, with slender geometric windows at ground level and quatrefoil oculi above.

The octagonal belfry rises in three stages divided by string courses. The base is rectangular, chamfering to octagonal at the second stage. Simple hoodmoulded windows light alternate faces at the second stage. The bell chamber features pointed-arch openings with nook-shafts to each face, beneath a polygonal roof.

The truncated south tower comprises two stages. The upper stage has deeply embrasured hoodmoulded windows and corbelled coping to a flat roof.

The transepts feature a five-light window with colonette mullions at ground level and a large rose window above, hoodmoulded to the west and with a trefoil at the apex. The east window at ground level is obscured by a modern addition.

The north elevation displays piend-roofed stair towers projecting from a gabled bay at the centre, with a tall four-light traceried window and a gablehead stack.

The single-storey church hall and vestry form separate buildings adjoining the main church. Both are rectangular in plan with chamfered angles and cusped windows at intervals. Gabled bays break the eaves line to the east and west respectively.

The roof is pitched grey slate with fishscale banding. Gables are coped with overlapping stone slabs, and a stone cross finial crowns the south gable. A cast-iron weathervane finial tops the belfry. A corniced gablehead stack rises from the north, with a ridge stack serving the offices and two conical-capped ventilators mounted to the church hall roof.

The boundary comprises a low coped rubble wall to Chalmers Crescent and Grange Road, with a high coped rubble mutual wall to the north. Ashlar gatepiers with chamfered angles and pyramidal coping are mounted on polygonal bases incorporating cast-iron lamp standards (lamps now missing). Modern cast-iron or steel gates feature cast vesica panels.

The interior was converted to a hall in 1972, with original windows masked by timber louvres and a new ceiling suspended from a double braced timber roof and galleries. Floriate stone corbels (painted) remain visible, as do cast-iron columns from the former south gallery, now the organ gallery. A gothic traceried timber pulpit, salvaged from St Margaret's, Juniper Green, stands in the space. The organ is a mid to late 20th century instrument relocated from Argyle Place Church (demolished in 1974). A timber altar with gothic details is present. A life-size Sicilian marble medallion portrait of Horatius Bonar by sculptor George J Webster, executed in 1890, is mounted in the vestibule. Patterned stained glass survives in the traceried north window, positioned above the suspended ceiling.