Parsonage, Annan Road, Gretna

Parsonage at Annan Road, Gretna

This is a simple garden suburb picturesque rectory designed by Geoffry Lucas around 1917. It is a two-storey brick-built structure with a rear wing, featuring a door on the east flank and a three-bay elevation to Annan Road. The central bay is advanced, and the building has small-paned windows with timber mullions and transoms. A pair of ridge stacks rise prominently from the piended slate roof.

The rectory is constructed in red brick, an unusual residential building material in Scotland, with decorative features in the brick detailing above the windows. The top storey windows are set close to the roof line, and the deep eaves add to the architectural interest. The prominent chimney stacks make this a significant addition to Gretna's main street.

The building was constructed between 1916 and 1918 as part of the planned township of Gretna. The town was established to provide housing and community facilities for workers at a nearby munitions factory. During the First World War, the government commissioned a large munitions factory to be built along the banks of the Solway, stretching for nine miles and producing Cordite explosives. Thousands of workers were brought in from around Britain and Ireland, necessitating the construction of temporary timber and permanent brick housing.

The township was designed on Garden City principles, with green spaces surrounding the houses, a wide central street containing shops and community facilities, and curving streets. Raymond Unwin, one of the most important figures in early twentieth-century British town planning, was appointed by the government as overseeing architect, with Courtnay M Crickmer acting as resident architect. The township included several churches, a dance hall, a school and a cinema for the workers and their families. After the war, the munitions factory was dismantled, with only a few remnants remaining.

This rectory serves the adjacent All Saints Episcopal Church and represents one of only two known Scottish buildings designed by Geoffry Lucas, whose practice was based in Hitchin, Hertfordshire.