Glencairn Parish Church And Churchyard, Kirkland

Glencairn Parish Church, built in 1836 to a Gothic design by William MacCandlish of Dalry, stands in Kirkland. The church is laid out in a T-plan, incorporating a north transept, and features a central four-stage square tower on its south wall. The building is symmetrical and constructed of rubble with ashlar dressings. All door and window openings are hood-moulded with pointed heads; the main body of the church has windows with elaborate intersecting wooden tracery and small panes of glass. The south-facing tower has a doorway with a fanlight and reveals that are moulded and shafted. The second stage of the tower rises above the eaves, with a tall lancet window on each face. The third stage features a blind quatrefoil, and the fourth stage has a louvred lancet belfry opening. Pilaster strips clasp the tower and develop into octagonal angle shafts at the top stage, rising above a crenellated parapet with pinnacles. Two large windows flank the tower on each side. The east and west gables both feature doors, with the west door now blocked, below a small window for a gallery and with full-height windows on either side. The north transept displays an unusual arrangement of a large arched opening with a window above and three recessed doorways on its north wall. The roof is slate-covered, and the building has saw-tooth skews, with pinnacles marking the gables and the clasping angle pilaster strips. A low vestry is located in the northeast re-entrant angle.

The interior of the church contains three galleries supported by Tuscan columns. An octagonal oak pulpit and communion table are situated on the south wall and are not original to the building. A white marble monument by H. Rouw of London, commemorating Walter Ross Munro (died 1816), stands on the east wall. A bronze bust of Rev Patrick Borrowman by James Paterson ARSA, originally from a Free Church and removed circa 1960, had previously been housed within. A leaded glass window is dated 1948. The church remains an ecclesiastical building in use as such. Two schemes for alterations to the church, designed by Peter MacGregor Chalmers, were never executed and their drawings are held within the church.