Monigaff Parish Church

Monigaff Parish Church

Built in 1836 and designed by William Burn, this is a Gothic church of rectangular plan with a five-bay nave and a three-stage entrance tower to the west. The external walls are constructed in whinstone rubble with red sandstone ashlar dressings, featuring a base course and moulded eaves cornice with courses. All stonework displays smooth margin drafts and stugged rybats. The building is embellished with set-off buttresses topped by water-leaf-finialled gabletted pinnacles, and angle buttresses to all corners. Windows throughout are pointed-arched with slender Y-tracery and transoms. The church features double-leaf panelled doors and retains leaded diamond-pane glazing. The roof is covered with graded grey slates, and some original rainwater goods survive.

The west elevation presents the tower at centre with square stair turrets adjoining to left and right, crowned by a cornice and blocking course to the gable above. The tower itself has a hoodmoulded, moulded, and deeply chamfered pointed-arched door surround with nook-shafts to the west. Hoodmoulded windows at the second stage open to the north, west, and south, though those to north and south are blind and truncated by the adjoining stair turrets. The nave adjoins to the east. Third-stage windows feature nook-shafts and colonnette-mullions with three-light intersecting tracery; all are blind except the lower part of the window to the west. A string course stepped over windows at the hoodmould marks the division. Clasping buttresses, octagonal above the first stage, rise to pinnacles. The parapet is gabled at centre to each face, with a double course between stages and below the parapet. The upper course between the second and third stages is stepped over a moulded square panel to each face. Stair turrets flank the first stage to north and south, each with a cornice and blocking course; they feature two vertically-placed blind round-headed lancets to the west and windows to the outer returns, with a small square window below to the south return.

The north elevation displays five bays divided by buttresses. A porch occupies the centre bay, truncating the window above. The porch has a crenellated parapet gabled over the door to the north, adorned with a shield and garland motif in the gablehead. A moulded four-centre-arched door opens within, with small lancets to the east and west returns. Diagonal buttresses strengthen the angles. The cornice is raised over the door. The south elevation likewise comprises five bays divided by buttresses.

The east elevation features an ogee-hoodmoulded four-centred-arched window with five-light panel tracery and transom. Below this, a vestry advanced and canted to the east has depressed-arched doors to its north and south returns; its canted bay at centre contains two-light four-centre-arched windows, with lancets to left and right. A cornice and blocking course run above, and a gable surmounts this with a corniced octagonal die built into the apex. Diagonal buttresses strengthen the angles.

The interior comprises two aisles to the five-bay nave. A boarded horseshoe gallery on columns extends to three sides. The walls are painted plaster with boarded dadoes. Four-centre-arched doors with leaded glazing to their upper panels provide access. A plaster rib-vaulted ceiling spans the nave. Marble mural tablets commemorate the dead, and timber pews furnish the worship space.

A dentil-corniced double-leaf door from the tower porch leads to a vestibule slightly advanced into the nave to the west, with doors on returns. An organ built by Bryceson and Co, London, was installed in the west gallery in 1872. A clock is built into the west gallery.

The blind arcaded octagonal pulpit occupies a prominent position with steps from the left. A timber communion table, lectern, and stone font are positioned within. Behind these stands a dentil-corniced, panelled and quatrefoiled screen. Doors to the vestry, set in angled, corniced panels, flank the screen. A door to the porch opens at centre to the north. A plaster hoodmould crowns the east window.

The east window commemorates Patrick Stewart (died 1865). Stained glass panels below transoms ornament the north and south walls. A window in the bay to the right of centre on the north honours the memory of Randolph Stewart, 9th Earl of Galloway (died 1873). The south wall contains a window to the left in memory of Charlotte Nugent-Dunbar (died 1951); a window to the left of centre commemorates James MacKie (1868); a window at centre was created by A Ballantine and Son, Edinburgh, in 1910; similarly detailed windows occupy the right of centre and the far right. The remaining windows and panels above transoms feature a variety of geometric and diamond-pane glazing, some coloured and some etched, with coloured margins.

The graveyard contains many fine monuments dating to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Old Parish Church stands to the south (listed separately), and the Heron Monument is located to the west (listed separately).

The graveyard walls consist of low rubble construction with granite saddleback coping. Cast-iron fleur-de-lis railings enclose the north and west boundaries; double-leaf spearhead gates open to the west and south.

Two cross slabs stand within the graveyard: a pillar-cross sculptured in relief on three faces, and a pillar sculptured partly in relief and partly incised on one face.