Murrayfield Parish Church, Abinger Gardens, Edinburgh

Murrayfield Parish Church is a cruciform church designed by A Hunter Crawford and completed in 1905. The chancel and north transept were completed and an organ chamber added by A Balfour Paul in 1929-31, with a hall added by J Wilson Paterson in 1956.

The church is built of squared and snecked Hailes rubble with Prudham stone cusped tracery and polished details. It features an incomplete angle-buttressed southwest tower, a large west window, and curvilinear tracery throughout. The tower has an advanced 2-tier base course. Other external features include gabled buttresses, chamfered cills, corbelled hoodmoulds to windows, an eaves course to the south elevation, skews and skewputts.

The west elevation has three bays. At ground level to the left is a rectilinear surround with a chamfered pointed arch opening and blind quatrefoil in the spandrels, with 2-leaf timber doors with ornamental strap hinges. To the left is a bipartite window with rectilinear surround and ogee-cusped tracery, above which is a small light. A banded eaves course and piend roof sit above. The centre bay contains three evenly disposed bipartite windows with rectilinear surrounds and ogee-cusped tracery at ground level. Above these, filling the gable at upper floor level, is a large pointed-arched window comprising two principal mullions with ogee-cusped tracery between them, above a tall central light with three tall narrow lights to either side, each with ogee-cusped tracery above. The right bay has at ground level a bipartite pointed-arch window above the base course, and at the top storey a narrow light set to the left.

The south and east elevations have seven bays. At the outer left is a single-bay tower, and the south transept is advanced at the fifth bay from the left. The southwest tower features a depressed three-centred opening to the porch at ground level, with rectilinear panels flanking it and blind ogee-cusped tracery. A large engaged finial links with an unusual heavy moulding to a band course above, projecting at either end. Above is a bipartite pointed-arch window with ogee-cusped tracery. The three bays between the tower and transept each contain a large pointed-arch window comprising three tall lights with tracery above, separated by buttresses, with a band course above. A single storey porch with a raised rectilinear pattern is set across the re-entrant angle at the right, featuring a door in a four-centred opening with a dentilled band course above. The angle-buttressed south transept has a large window comprising four tall lights with ogee-cusped tracery above, and a narrow rectangular light to the gable. A piend-roofed square-plan addition to the corner of the return to the east (the organ chamber) has a narrow round-arched light to each face and a bipartite traceried window to its right. The east end elevation of the chancel features a large pointed-arch window with curvilinear tracery and a cross finial to the gable above.

The interior has high chamfered arcades opening into aisles. The roof is high-pitched oak with arched hammerbeam trusses, while the chancel has a wagon roof. The organ chamber opens off the south side of the chancel and contains an organ by Brooke of Glasgow from 1870, rebuilt by A E Ingram in 1925. This organ was moved from the Holy Rude in Stirling in 1936 and further rebuilt by Rushworth & Dreaper in 1962. Light oak choir stalls and panelling with gilded carving in light relief at the east wall were created by J Murray Reid in 1930 for the chancel. A gallery and northwest staircase from Ormidale Terrace were also designed by Balfour Paul. The east window, depicting the Last Supper and Crucifixion, was created by Douglas Strachan RSA in 1934. The remaining chancel lights were executed by Herbert Hendrie in 1936. James Ballantine was responsible for four lights of Saints Columba, Ninian, Cuthbert and Margaret in the south transept. William Wilson executed the Nativity lights in the north transept in 1964 and also created four pairs of Old Testament lights in the vestibule in 1961. Robert S Lorimer created a First World War memorial of carved oak with a canopy to the south of the chancel arch in 1921.

The hall is a symmetrical two-storey addition of three bays with polished margins and a banded eaves course. At ground level is a deep-set 2-leaf timber door with flanking lights at the centre, with bipartite windows to the remaining bays at ground and first floor levels. No major alterations have been carried out except an expansion of the altar area.