Kay Park Parish Church, London Road, Kilmarnock

Kay Park Parish Church, London Road, Kilmarnock

Built in 1907 and designed by Thomas Smellie, this is a freely adapted Gothic parish church constructed on a steep slope. The building is a multi-gabled structure with a tall aisle to the west, a projecting gabled stair bay to the south-west, a deep transept on the east elevation, and a gabled projection to the lower north chancel.

The exterior is built from snecked, rubble-faced red sandstone with contrasting ashlar dressings. Features include gablet skews and long gablet skewputts, with moulded window and door surrounds and drip cills throughout.

The south principal elevation features curved wing walls leading to a door set under a moulded pointed arch with plain reveals, positioned in the south of an advanced tower. Above the door is a semi-circular window containing two arched lights. The two-stage tower is fitted with angle buttresses and an octagonal, corbelled stair-tower with a pointed roof to the upper right, featuring irregularly placed slit windows. The main tower has paired cusped belfry openings, a crenellated parapet, and angle finials to each return. A tall gable to the left contains a pair of arches at ground floor with paired arched windows above and a blind wall below. The gablehead features a large four-ogee light window with teardrop lights, a trefoil above, and a slit window, with a gabled buttress at the left angle.

The west elevation presents a lower two-storey, four-bay aisle at the centre with a door to the ground floor right, miniature paired windows above to the left, three large bipartite windows to the left, and four arched tripartite bays to the first floor with a central stepped buttress serving both storeys. The higher nave behind contains four semi-circular bays with three and four light pointed arch windows. A three-storey gable with gabled angle buttresses adjoins to the right of the nave, featuring a bipartite window to ground floor, an arched bipartite window to the first floor, and a multifoil window to the gablehead. A further two-storey stair gable to the left of the aisle has a slit window to the first floor.

The north rear elevation features ground floor angles with a single bay at the base of a three-sided, double height apse, with a second floor pointed arch window to each side. To the right are two windows of irregular width with a narrow window to the second floor right. A lean-to terminating in a large stack adjoins the left return of the apse, with tripartite windows to the upper ground and first floors, a small window to the mid floor left, and a further single window to the left of a later red brick stack. The taller east gable adjoins the side of this elevation.

The east elevation comprises a tower, lean-to, deep transept gable, and lower gable. The stair tower to the left has a door to ground floor and a two-light window with a roundel within an arched surround to the first floor. A two-storey lean-to to the second left features a bipartite window to ground floor and a triple arched window to the first floor. The three-storey transept gable end to the second right contains a central two-storey battered gable with bipartite windows to ground floor flanks and paired arched windows to first floor flanks; the gablehead has a central arched window with four lower lights leading to intersecting bar tracery above. A lower gable to the right has a central two-storey canted bay window.

The windows feature mostly plain and coloured glass of squared or diamond quarry, with reticulated tracery to the south gable window. The west elevation displays mullion and transomed windows to the lower hall, four-centred heads to the triple aisle windows, and Y-tracery to the gallery. Six lying-pane upper fixed timber windows and eight-pane lying-pane timber sash and case windows serve the lower lights of the hall and associated rooms, fitted with clear glass. Cast-iron two-pane Carron lights illuminate the higher gabled roofs.

The roof structure consists of many steeply pitched grey slate roofs with terracotta ridging tiles and finials to the apse, lead flashing and valleys, and painted cast-iron rainwater goods with square hoppers. Wall-head stacks are built from snecked, rubble-faced red sandstone with single high cans, whilst a later brick boiler house stack features no cans.

The interior contains timber pews in the main body of the building, with a church hall incorporated at the lower level and numerous associated ante-rooms for ecclesiastical use.