Stenton Church

Stenton Church, built in 1829 by William Burn, is a T-plan church constructed in a spiky Gothic style. The church is built of stugged, coursed pink sandstone with ashlar dressings, featuring a base course, chamfered reveals, and hoodmoulds over pointed-arch and four-centred openings. Stone mullioned windows have Perpendicular tracery. Grey slates cover the roof.

The square, three-stage tower is adjoined to the east gable end wall of the church. A doorway on the east side has a studded and panelled door; a window is set to the south side. A canted stair bay is set in the re-entrant angle to the north, with a small window. Set-offs mark the second stage, with narrower, cusped windows on three sides, and polygonal angles extending into attenuated pinnacles with gabletted finials above the third stage. The third stage has two-light windows on three sides, with hoodmoulds continuing in a string course. A parapet features arrow-slits. The main gable has angle buttresses, less attenuated finials, and parapetted skews adjoining the tower.

The west elevation has a buttressed gable with a central four-centred doorway flanked by raised and buttressed pilasters, linked to a tall four-centred, five-light window. The doorway was blocked in 1892, but the studded doors were retained.

The north elevation features a gabled central north jamb flanked by two-light windows. This gable is detailed similarly to the west gable, but with a four-light window. A corbel at the apex was missing a finial as of 1988.

The south elevation was re-oriented to the west in 1892 by J Jerdan of Edinburgh. The interior features whitewashed walls, a boarded dado, and a segmentally arched, ribbed ceiling. A neo-Jacobean lairds gallery is located in the north jamb with a coomb ceiling above, and a panelled gallery front with cusp carving to the east end. Painted benches, clover finials, a simple reredos, a traceried timber communion table, and a panelled polygonal timber pulpit are also present. Stained glass windows include a five-light window by C.E. Kempe (1888) depicting the Virgin, Child, and Saints, along with other windows by Ballantine and Gardiner, dated 1892, 1898, and 1910.

The graveyard is enclosed by stugged coursed sandstone parapet walls with gable coping to the south, and rubble walls to the remaining perimeter. Two sets of square ashlar gatepiers have chamfered angles, moulded coping, and pyramid caps. Decorative wrought-iron gates are present. The graveyard contains notable 18th-century gravestones, particularly those from the mid-century period.