Sunday School, London Road Church, London Road, Edinburgh

Sunday School, London Road Church, London Road, Edinburgh

This is a Gothic church with adjoining church hall and offices, prominently sited on a corner location. The church was designed by John Starforth and built in 1874. Norman Reid carried out consolidation and modernisation work in 1965. The complex comprises an H-plan Gothic church with a square-plan steepled tower to the south-east corner, and an adjoining Tudor-style hall and offices to the north.

The church is constructed of bullfaced snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings, featuring a base course and eaves course with staged buttresses. The windows are predominantly lancets, arranged in groups of 2 or 3 beneath overarches with hoodmoulds and sloping cills, with stop-chamfered margins and geometric tracery. Doors are timber-boarded with ornate wrought-iron hinges in shouldered openings.

The south elevation facing London Road comprises a 5-bay elevation defined by buttresses. To the centre is a 3-bay gable with a 2-leaf door at the centre, flanked by a colonetted gablet porch and paired colonetted bipartite windows on either side. Above this are tripartite and bipartite windows with a scalloped triangular opening to the gablehead. To the outer left bay is a door in a pointed overarch at ground level with a bipartite window above; quatrefoils set in roundels form a frieze below the eaves. The outer right bay contains the advanced tower.

The south-east tower is a slightly battered square-plan structure in two stages, topped by an octagonal stone spire. The first stage features a frieze of roundels and a stringcourse dividing the stages. The south elevation has a door in a pointed overarch at ground level and lancet windows above. The east elevation has a bipartite window, and a quadrant stair tower projects from the re-entrant angle to the north. The second stage has angle buttresses at each corner, bipartite louvred windows on each elevation, and pinnacles. The spire base has a single louvred window to each elevation with a lucarne above, a gableted stringcourse, and is surmounted by a weathervane.

The east elevation facing Easter Road is a 6-bay elevation defined by buttresses. The outer left bay contains the advanced tower. The outer right bays have two advanced gables, each with tripartite windows and smaller tripartite windows beneath, with vesicas to the gableheads. The centre three bays feature tripartite windows of lancets with small triangular windows below, and there are three ventilation gablets to the roof.

The west elevation mirrors the east elevation, except that the tower is replaced by a projecting canted bay with a piended roof and brattishing, featuring bipartite windows to alternate faces and quatrefoils set in roundels forming a frieze below the eaves.

The glazing is predominantly square leaded panes with coloured borders, with some small amounts of stained glass to the larger windows. The roof is pitched, covered with graded grey slate, with stone skews and moulded skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes and ornamental hoppers are present.

Boundary walls and railings are constructed of stugged, snecked sandstone with ashlar saddleback copes, piers and gatepiers. Modern railings have been added.

The interior follows a T-plan with six bays and a galleried design, with aisles to the east and west serving the two bays nearest the north. Simple timber pews with umbrella stands are present, along with a modern organ. A rose window is located at the north end. The U-shaped gallery is supported by cast-iron columns and brackets with a timber blind Gothic-arched parapet. The aisles to the gallery feature stilted pointed arches. A timber cut roof covers the interior. The south entrance hall has timber memorial panels to the wall and a ribbed pointed tunnel vaulted ceiling with ornate bosses. At either end of this hall are stair halls with stone cantilevered stairs with cast-iron balusters.

The church hall and related offices adjoin the church to the north-east. The main hall dates from 1874, with extensions to the east and west designed by Sydney, Mitchell and Wilson in 1902-3. These structures are constructed of bullfaced snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings, with a first-floor cill course. Windows are mullioned with stop-chamfered margins, some transomed to the outer right bay. The south elevation features a window to the far left at ground and first-floor levels, with a buttress to the far right. The east elevation is a 5-bay elevation with a gabled bay to the far right. At ground-floor level, the second bay from the left has a 2-leaf timber-boarded door with a cusped 4-light mullioned window above in a pointed opening; the outer left and right bays have tripartite windows, and the fourth bay from the left has a door with a small window. The first floor has single windows to the second and fourth bays from the left, bipartite windows to the first and third bays, and a tripartite window to the outer right bay. Windows are predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case. The pitched roof is covered with graded grey slate with stone skews and gablet skewputts. Stacks are shouldered to the south elevation and gablehead to the south and east elevations, all corniced with circular cans. A cast-iron downpipe with an ornamental hopper is present.

The interior of the hall is part-aisled with basket-arched bays and pointed-arched windows to the east aisle. A timber scissor beam roof, partly ceiled, features ornamented spandrels.