Cockenzie and Port Seton Parish Church, Edinburgh Road, Cockenzie and Port Seton

Cockenzie and Port Seton Parish Church

A Grade A church designed by Sydney Mitchell and Wilson in 1904, situated on Edinburgh Road. The building adopts an original and eclectic style combining elements of northern European Gothic, Arts and Crafts, and Scots vernacular traditions. It is vaguely cruciform and quasi-symmetrical in plan, with a prominent tower and spire at the north end, a vestry projecting to the east, and an aisle at the rear to the west. The structure is built in variegated random rubble with rough dressings and chamfered ashlar surrounds to the main windows. A modern church hall adjoins the building, added in 1953.

The tower on the north elevation is a saddleback tower, gabled east to west with ashlar skews and rolled skewputts. It is surmounted by a spirelet comprising a louvred octagonal base and a slate roof that is bulbous then pointed. The north side of the tower has a carved plaque in the lower wall and a large three-light Gothic window above with perpendicular tracery, set within a rounded arch with hoodmould decoration. The west and east gableheads both contain small twin windows with simple tracery and carving. A two-light window appears at ground floor level on the east side, whilst the west side has a small single window in the lower left bay.

Behind the tower, the north elevation is symmetrical, with the tower positioned centrally. Each side has a two-light window to the ground floor and twin windows to the upper level, featuring simple tracery and carving with the outer openings foreshortened.

The east elevation's forward section is divided into five bays by four raked stone buttresses. The entrance door, positioned in the northernmost bay, is a two-leaf vertically-boarded door with large and boldly curved iron hinges. A three-light window occupies the next bay, while the remaining bays are blank. Three broad swept dormers with quadripartite glazing and perpendicular timber tracery rise from the eastern roof pitch. The rear section projects forward to form the vestry, which has an open entrance porch containing doors to the church, vestry, and cellar. A small window serves the vestry and a smaller opening provides access to the cellar.

The west elevation mirrors the east elevation but with three buttresses and two swept dormers in the forward section. A piended aisle projects at right angles to the rear, featuring a tripartite window facing north and a door to the west that links to the later church hall.

The south elevation's main section is symmetrical, with two-light windows to the ground floor. A large Gothic window in the gablehead is divided into five sections with perpendicular tracery beneath a rounded arch with hoodmould decoration. The projecting vestry to the east has one small window.

The windows throughout are predominantly fixed with leaded diamond panes, some containing stained glass. The main roof and tower are gabled; the vestry roof is piended, all covered in graded light-grey slates. A single tall stepped chimneystack with two small cans rises from the rear of the vestry.

Interior

The church contains an exceptional interior. A broad open timber roof spans the building across seven bays, featuring tie beams, arcades, and arched braces. All timber is stencilled with symbolic designs in blue on cream and cream on blue. At the north end, a vestibule leads to a gallery landing screened with diamond panes. The gallery above extends across two bays and is supported on timber posts that continue upward as twisted columns reaching to the roof. The main body comprises four bays with two flanking aisles. The southernmost bay forms the chancel, with a central communion table beneath a semicircular vault decorated in red and cream stencilling. Delicate loop tracery veils flank this vault, above the pulpit to the east and choir seating to the west. The west aisle (or transept) is roofed around a central timber post.

The furnishings are of high quality and predominantly original. Three windows contain stained glass: the west window, inscribed "except the Lord build the house", dates to 1922 and is by Margaret Kemp; the east window is by Margaret Chilton; and the east dormer window depicting the New Testament dates to 1949 and is by John Blyth.