Free Church, Main Street, Garvald

This is an early Free Church, dated 1843, designed by John Muirhead and situated on a sloping site to the east and south. The church is constructed of red rubble sandstone with squared and snecked detailing in later additions. It features a squat, late 19th-century tower to the east and a porch to the west.

The porch is a gabled bay with a pointed arched doorway, set at the south end of a crude, lean-to vestibule adjoined to the church’s gable end in the late 19th century. The doorway has a hoodmould with carved label stops and a string course at impost level, a deeply chamfered arris to the surround, a 2-light pointed fanlight, and a pair of boarded doors with decorative hinges. Consolded skewputts, carved corbels set obliquely to the skew, and a finial are also present.

The nave has two enlarged windows on the north and south sides, now tripartite with timber mullions, set under the eaves with a diamond pane glazing pattern. Five bee bole-like recesses are set at the centre of the south elevation at ground level. A lean-to outbuilding is adjoined to the left of the north side.

The east gable has two pointed arched windows with timber intersecting tracery and diamond pane glazing. Small rectangular windows flank the outer bays and a trefoil is set in the gablehead, topped with a ball finial. The west gable has a rectangular panel above the lean-to, inscribed "ERECTED 1843," and includes an arched bellcote.

The tower is built of bull-faced coursed rubble sandstone, with two stages separated by a string course and a corbelled eaves course. A small heating chamber is located at ground level to the north. It has round arched, hoodmoulded openings. A doorway on the south side has boarded doors and decorative hinges. Narrow, arched, stone mullioned bipartites with louvred openings are present on each face of the upper stage. The tower is topped with a slated pyramidal spire, leaded flashings, and a ball and taper finial.

Rubble coped retaining walls are situated nearby. The church is an early, if unremarkable, Free Church design, built after the Disruption, with Gilbert Dempster and Mr Dickson of Haddington acting as masons. Contracts were taken at sums of $86.4/- and $154. It is listed Category C(S) for its historical interest. Records pertaining to the Church Session can be found at the Scottish Record Office, CH3. 143.