Grange Free Church, Woodstock Street, Kilmarnock

Grange Free Church, Woodstock Street, Kilmarnock

A Grade B listed church designed by Robert Samson Ingram and constructed between 1877 and 1879. The building is designed in the Early English Gothic style as a T-plan church with stair towers and a spire. A lecture hall and classroom are attached to the east, connected by a later 20th-century link.

The church is built of coursed rubble-faced red sandstone with Ballochmyle dressings and quoins. The skews are saw-toothed with gablet and plain skewputts.

The south principal elevation features a main gable with steps leading to paired doors with moulded reveals. Above the doors is an oculus within a pointed arch with hoodmould and floriate stops, flanked by single trefoil top lights. A cill band extends to a five-light arched window above with hoodmould and floriate stops; the stone finial to the gablehead is missing its top. To the left is a stepped trefoil top tripartite window on the ground floor, with a cill course leading to an upper level trefoil top tripartite window. Stepped gabled buttresses with a tripartite window between them occupy the left return, with a small arched window to the gablehead. A southeast tower rises in two stages and is surmounted by a 140-foot-high spire. The lower stage has angle buttresses flanking a stepped tripartite light, with a further stepped tripartile light and cill course above, and a triple light to the east. The second stage has attached shafts at the angles and tall traceried louvred openings to each face. The broached spire has lucarnes on alternate faces and is topped by the base of an original weathervane with a ball finial.

The west elevation contains a gable to the left with a tripartite window and a single flanking window on the ground floor, topped by a tall arched triple light with a split light to the gablehead. To the right are triple windows at ground and gallery level set within a splayed angle bay, adjoining the west return of the south elevation.

The north rear elevation has a gable end with the ground floor concealed behind a multi-light arched window above.

The east elevation adjoins the north stage of the tower to the left. The centre features triple windows at ground and gallery level in a splayed angle bay. A gable to the right contains a tripartite window with a single flanking window on the ground floor and a tall four-light window with a slit light to the gablehead.

The interior contains multi-coloured stained glass with squared and diamond quarry detailing, protected on the exterior by later plate glass. A steeply pitched piended grey slate roof with alternating bands of plain and fish-scale detailing is topped with gablet louvres and terracotta crested ridge tiles with zinc gulleys and flashing. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods are partially concealed behind a low parapet and corbelled eaves course.

Inside the church, as seen in 2017, is a raked circular gallery supported on slender cast-iron columns with decorative plaster capitals. The ceiling is distinctive, triangulated and ribbed. An 1896 stained glass window in the north gable depicting the Good Shepherd was created by Ballantine and Gardiner.

The attached hall to the east is essentially T-plan in form, connected to the church by a later 20th-century link. It is built of rock-faced red sandstone with dressed quoins, cills and courses, and has saw-toothed skews.

The south principal elevation of the hall features a lean-to east-facing porch in a re-entrant angle with a door and window to the left return, and an additional open piended porch to the right. A large projecting gable to the left contains a tall three-light plate traceried window topped by an ornate brass finial. Five rectangular windows with chamfered reveals occupy the long elevation to the right of the porch.

The east elevation has a projecting gable end with a three-light window.

The north elevation features a tall square brick stack and five rectangular windows along its long elevation, with a later flat-roofed structure in a re-entrant angle. A stepped gable to the right has regularly placed bays to the left return, meeting a higher gable with two windows to the left return and a stone stack on its apex.

The west elevation has a gable with paired bipartite windows on the ground floor and a slit light to the gablehead. A modern link adjoins to the right, open to the west, with a solid timber north elevation and a semi-glazed door on the right. Black wrought-iron railings with a large timber cross at the centre support a flat roof. Further paired windows occupy the space to the right.

The boundary walls and railings consist of rock-faced red sandstone walls with angled copes following the slope of the incline. Decorative wrought-iron railings terminate at two pairs of dressed red sandstone piers with angled bases, moulded shafts and pyramid copes. Vehicular access is to the southwest and pedestrian access to the south.