Old Luce Parish Church And Churchyard, Church Street, Glenluce

Old Luce Parish Church And Churchyard, Church Street, Glenluce

The church was built in 1814 and extensively remodelled by Ian W D Macdonald between 1967 and 1968. It is a T-plan building finished in dry-dash with concrete margins and quoin strips. An eaves course runs around the building, and the windows are round-arched with keystones and imposts, fitted with small-pane opaque glazing. The roof is covered in modern tiles.

The west elevation features a flat-roofed rectangular-plan porch with an eaves cornice and blocking course, added in 1967. At the centre is a keystoned round-arched doorway with a double-leaf door, flanked by windows. The north and south returns have quoined lancet windows. Above the doorway is a round-arched window, and a birdcage bellcote with a curved base and stepped roof crowns the elevation, topped with a modern weathervane. The original bell, now rung electrically, is housed within.

The south elevation is of four bays with round-arched windows at ground floor, the outer right bay being blind. Square windows occupy the upper storey, with the outer left and right bays blind.

The east elevation contains a round window at its centre.

The north elevation has an advanced jamb at the centre, with a gabled porch added in 1967 that features a round-arched door approached from the north. A small lean-to adjoins the porch to its left. Above the porch is a round-arched window. A forestair serves a door to the left on the east return, with further windows at the centre and to the right. The west return has a window to the right. A full-height rectangular projection of 1967 stands in the re-entrant angle to the right, featuring a stair window to the north and an eaves cornice with blocking course.

The interior was completely remodelled in 1967 and 1968. The walls are rendered with a boarded dado. The chancel lies to the east with a stone east wall. Oak and marble furnishings by David Jardine of Stranraer include the pulpit, communion table and font. A raked gallery occupies the west end. An organ, built by Casey and Cairney of Glasgow, is positioned in the north gallery. A vestry at ground floor to the north has a session house above it, behind the gallery. Original pews remain, and the windows have deep embrasures.

The church contains notable stained glass. A round window in the east wall is dated 1889 and was transferred from Ladyburn Church. Two lancet windows in the porch, "The Good Shepherd" to the south and "The Light of the World" to the north, were made by William Meikle & Sons of Glasgow in 1905, also from Ladyburn Church.

The graveyard contains fine gravestones and wall monuments dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. A burial enclosure to the east, possibly of the Adairs of Genoch, is constructed of rubble with red sandstone ashlar dressings and a flat coping. It features quoin strips, architraved margins and is six bays wide to the west with a central dividing pilaster. Two doorways, one now blocked, have an armorial panel above the left opening and a moulded panel above the right. Blind window openings occupy the remaining bays.

A double-chambered burial enclosure of the Dalrymple-Hays lies to the west, also rubble with red sandstone ashlar dressings. An 18th-century monument above the right chamber entrance features a pediment with a winged soul in the tympanum, surmounted by an urn, with a shouldered architrave to the central panel bearing egg and dart moulding and flanking consoles. A later marble plaque below reads "Burial place of the Dalrymple-Hays of Park Place". The monument above the left chamber entrance was obscured by ivy as of 1991, though several moulded sandstone panels survive within.

The graveyard walls are of rubble with flat red sandstone coping. Granite quoined and corniced square gatepiers on Church Street to the west are flanked by fleur-de-lis cast-iron two-leaf gates. A cemetery to the north contains monuments from the mid to later 19th century. A modern church hall, designed by Hill, Macdonald and Potter in 1971, stands to the northwest outside the graveyard boundary.