Parish Church, Dunbar

The Parish Church in Dunbar is a Perpendicular Gothic Revival church built between 1818 and 1821 by James Gillespie Graham. The rectangular building features clasping angle buttressed towers and a four-stage west tower. In 1897, a five-sided, buttressed apse was added to the east gable by W and J Hay of Liverpool. The church is constructed of coursed squared Bourhouse sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has a slate roof. It is characterised by mullioned and traceried pointed windows, all with hood moulds, and a gabled, crenellated parapet to the apse, gables, and towers, resting on a string course.

The entrance tower is divided by string courses with openings on each face at each stage. It features four-centred doorways to the porch and two-light cusped windows in the first and second stage, with three-light louvred openings at the belfry. Tall aisle windows flank the tower, and are repeated along the north and south walls. Between the outer corner towers, the advanced centre bay is gabled, with a circular trefoiled window in the gable head.

Inside, the church has an aisled nave with five-bay pointed arcades supported by columns with moulded capitals. Timber ceiling trusses, gothicised in 1897, are exposed. An original gallery in the west bay was removed by W and J Hay. A Gothic style oak pulpit and sounding board were added in 1918, and a communion table in 1934. The leaded windows from 1897 are plain. Stained glass windows include a central apse window by Edward Frampton (1901), flanked by windows by Ballantine and Sons (1865 and 1871), and a three-light south window by A L and C E Moore (1926). A wall monument to George Home, dating to circa 1611, is located at the east end of the north aisle.

A Renaissance Triumphal arch, incorporating elements from an earlier church, stands within the interior. It is constructed from polychrome marble and alabaster, measuring 12 feet high by 26 feet wide, and features a profiled kneeling figure at the centre, flanked by Knight atlantes supporting Justice and Wisdom figures. Reclining figures are within the arch, with a scrolled heraldic panel above. Italian workmen may have been involved in its creation and it was restored in 1897 by Grant Stevenson.

A lavabo, created by W Birnie Rhind circa 1901, is situated south of the Home monument. It consists of a shell supported by a pair of putti, likely made of alabaster, and is dedicated to Rev. Robert Buchanan.

The graveyard is enclosed by a rubble sandstone boundary wall extending south. A mid-17th century wall-slab on the west wall is decorated with Ionic columns with egg and dart moulding, weaponry reliefs, and strapwork. A trumpet-blowing angel is in the centre arch above a weathered inscription panel, and an escutcheon sits on the crowning pediment; it is possibly a memorial to a victim of the Battle of Dunbar. A late 17th century wall-slab, of bipartite form with channelled columns, and a Purves family monument with modern inscriptions in arched recesses, are also on the west wall.

A diminutive Gothic building from the early 19th century, now used as a tool-house, stands in the centre of the graveyard. It is constructed of rubble and slate, with a round arched door in an advanced, pedimented bay, flanked by blind, Y-traceried pointed arch lights.