Cairns Memorial Church, Gorgie Road, Edinburgh

Cairns Memorial Church, Gorgie Road, Edinburgh

This is an early continental gothic church designed by Robert Macfarlane Cameron between 1900 and 1902, with an accompanying hall by David Robertson dating to 1896. The church is constructed in rich cream squared and snecked sandstone with contrasting red ashlar dressings and base-course. It features a distinctive tower and octagonal spire positioned at the south-east corner in the re-entrant angle formed with the aisle. The windows are rectangular with shouldered heads and chamfered arrises, whilst the eaves are moulded. The hall, set to the west, is built in earlier squared and snecked pale sandstone with a gabled form and grey slate roof.

The south elevation facing Gorgie Road displays a hoodmoulded pointed portal with a two-leaf plank door, decorative iron hinges, and a five-light fanlight. Flanking the portal are hoodmoulded octofoils and gabled buttresses. Above, set within a central gable, is a geometric four-light window with a blind arcade below, crowned by a celtic cross. To the left stands a single-bay stair tower gabled on the return, with windows serving each floor. Adjacent to the hall to the west is a further two-storey half-piended bay, itself rising above an earlier two-leaf door (the original entrance to the hall) with a fanlight set within a pointed arch.

The tower comprises five stages. On its south elevation a ground-floor window is positioned above a blank square plaque. At the third stage is a pair of windows; the fourth stage features a deeply chamfered reveal to a hoodmoulded oculus; the fifth stage is narrower and framed, with a pair of hoodmoulded louvred lancets, a moulded cill course, and a corbelled, coped parapet with plain rainwater spouts. The east elevation of the tower displays a smaller version of the main portal at ground level, with a pair of windows and hoodmould course above, blank walling until the oculus and upper stage repeat the south elevation arrangement. The tower is topped by a polygonal red tiled spire with an annulet course and patterned tiling, finished with a weathercock.

The east elevation facing Tynecastle Terrace is two storeys and five bays, with the tower at the outer left. The two gabled north bays of the transept project forward beneath a bell-cast roof. Bipartite windows light the ground floor, while the second floor features round-headed hoodmoulded cusped two-light windows with slit windows above. Three aisle bays occupy the centre, each with bipartite windows divided by buttresses and sheltered beneath a catslide roof. A low wall with saddleback red ashlar coping and plain iron railings extends from the tower along this elevation.

The west elevation, facing the passage between church and hall, mirrors the east elevation's two-storey five-bay arrangement. A corridor joins the church and hall at this point. To the north lies a narrow gabled chancel bay at the centre, housing the organ and featuring a hoodmoulded octofoil window, with a window on the return face to the east elevation and an east door providing access to the corridor. The body of the church is roofed in grey-green slates with red slates to the spire; red ridge tiles and a louvred octagonal cupola with a lead roof crown the structure. Plain stacks and ashlar skews with triangular skewputts complete the external detail. Leaded windows with opaque panes are used throughout, with some coloured glass; stained glass fills the north and south gable windows.

The interior is entered through a narthex containing two flights of stairs to the gallery, a small-pane leaded internal window, and a pair of similar doors giving access to the main hall. The church proper comprises a five-bay full-height pointed arch arcade divided horizontally by a horseshoe gallery supported on gilded cast-iron columns with foliate capitals. The chancel arch is screened by a fine carved and panelled organ, with a pulpit flanked by flights of steps. The chancel houses a gothic communion table with matching chairs, all positioned on a raised dais. The gallery balcony is boarded in chevron pattern and features a central clock by P W Simpson of Chirnside. Panelled dado and fitted, numbered pews line the church throughout. The joinery is of high quality, stained and varnished, apparently original. The roof is timber-lined in wagon form, and three good early brass electric chandeliers provide illumination.

The hall features three lancet windows with a sunken vesica above, and moulded skews with cresting. A later flat-roofed canted entrance porch has been added to the left, incorporating a tripartite window and a moulded blocking course.