Muirhouse St Andrews Parish Church And Halls (Church Of Scotland), 42 Pennywell Gardens

The Muirhouse St Andrews Parish Church and Halls, located at 42 Pennywell Gardens, was designed by Harry Taylor and built between 1962 and 1965. It is a predominantly double-height, square-plan Modernist church oriented on a diagonal axis. The principal, south-facing corner elevation is symmetrical, featuring a large recessed entrance and a concrete sculpture beneath a canted overhang. The roofline rises to a sharp point on both the south and north corner elevations. A single-storey section wraps around the north corner, returning to the principal south corner elevation. The church has an artificial stone base course, is predominantly cavity brick construction with cement harl, and features a concrete eaves course and precast concrete steps. Window cills are chamfered. Small, rectangular clearstory windows are primarily aligned with the roofline, while the single-storey section has full-height glazing separated by tapered concrete mullions and timber transoms. The main entrance comprises paired timber and glazed doors, flanked by chamfered concrete stanchions. A cast-iron bell sits on a concrete bracket above the entrance. There is a cut-out to the north corner elevation featuring a structural, painted steel I-beam crucifix. Rough Z-plan church halls and a vestry are adjoined to the northwest corner.

Most windows have predominantly replacement opaque polycarbonate glazing in timber fixed panes, with some awning windows to the upper pane of the single-storey section; coloured glass is present in the clearstory lights. Church halls have some plate glass with various timber-framed fixed pane windows with pivots or awnings. The church has a concrete tiled, pitched roof, while the single-storey section and church halls have flat felt roofs.

The interior of the church follows a Modernist design scheme, with Greek cross windows featuring distinctive blue stained glass in the inner wall of the entrance vestibule. A stepped, square-plan tiled dais is present, alongside angled timber pews. A timber organ gallery, with a simple timber balustrade, is located above the entrance. Earlier bronze memorial plaques are displayed, and a suspended boarded-cedar ceiling is in place. The interior walls of the church are finished with painted aerated concrete blocks. Internal doors are predominantly timber with narrow fixed pane glazing and are two-leaf. A timber stage is located to the east of the large church hall.

Adjoining the church are church halls and a vestry, consisting of a 5-bay, double-height, rectangular hall connected to a single-storey, rectangular block on the southeast elevation, which accommodates a vestry and offices. A single-storey, square-plan hall abuts the southwest corner. The south elevation of the church hall, and the west elevations, have painted vertical timber boarding below and above the windows.