St John's Church, St John's Street, Whithorn

St John’s Church, built in 1884 by Thomson and Sandilands and opened in 1892, is a Scottish Gothic style church of rectangular plan with a tower, now internally altered to serve as a garage. The exterior is constructed of blue whinstone rubble with contrasting ashlar dressings, featuring a base course to both the tower and the entrance front.

The west elevation presents a wide gabled front. To the right, the gable is intercepted by a tower, and to the left by a buttress. The central bay is advanced and contains the main entrance, originally set within a tall ashlar gable with a round-arched doorway incorporating a hoodmould and moulded surround. The doorway is currently masked by a modern porch for the garage, and is topped with a semi-circular fanlight, flanked by small, stone mullioned windows. Above, a hooded, five-light round-arched window sits over the gabled entrance bay, with cusped round-arched lights. A small ventilation slit is located at the gablehead. A buttress flanks the entrance bay to the left, noticeably set-off where it intersects the skewline, and features a rounded die carved with a trefoil roundel. A narrow, round-arched and cusped window is situated to the outer left.

The squat, square tower is adjoined to the southwest corner and rises to a height of over 60 feet. It has a cusped light on each face at eaves level, with cinquefoil oculi on the upper stage. A deep frieze sits below the parapet, with three slit lights on each face, and chamfered courses above and below. The ashlar parapet, raised at the angles and within raised tripartite panels on each face, sits at ridge level.

The side elevations are six-bay, with slightly advanced, gabled bays at the crossing point (the penultimate bay to the east), breaking the eaves with stepped, round-arched, three-light windows. Round-arched, two-light windows are found in the bays flanking towards the entrance elevation (except on the south side, where garage doors have been inserted, and the tower adjoins the outer bay). A rectangular, two-light window and further window are present at the vestry in the outer left bay of the north elevation.

The windows now feature a square-pane glazing pattern. The roof is formed of deep slate, swept low, with evidence of four former triangular roof ventilators on each side, along with terracotta ridge tiles. A stack rises from the gable.

The interior was reportedly gutted to facilitate the conversion to a garage, but has not been inspected since 1990.