St Gabriel's Church Including Boundary Walls, Railings and Cross, West Loan, Prestonpans

St Gabriel's Church, built in 1965, was designed by George Kennedy and Michael Landon of Alison and Hutchison and Partners. This single-storey Catholic church is radially planned and built in a Modernist style. The structure features vertically banded rendered walls that rise in height towards the east, situated on an open site in the centre of a large, square corner plot. A tall timber cross marks the entrance. Expanding, finned walls create vertical window details on the east end and frame the altar. A large secondary section extends to the south, wrapping around the main concentric circular plan and culminating in a large, glazed Lady Chapel window facing east. The entrance is on the east side, flanked by a double-sided glazed baptistry with a taller, concave curved wall at its end. Shallow concrete ponds, which were empty in 2013, were designed to reflect sunlight through the stained glass, and a low base course of glazed windows wraps around the main space to provide interior lighting. The roof is sloping and flat, with three bands of rooflights.

A large cross, constructed from timber I-beam sections, is positioned just inside the main entrance gate, set within low brick walls and gatepiers topped with concrete. Replacement railings are present.

The interior, observed in 2013, has a main congregation space with solid curved walls and limited natural light, provided only by a horizontal glazed band near the floor. The boarded timber ceiling rises in three stages towards the altar. Lighting at the altar comes from three bands of rooflights and vertical side lights created by the external fin sections. The flooring is black terrazzo, with a raised, curved altar plinth made of patterned light grey polished marble. Large, Scandinavian-style Stations of the Cross, crafted by Fred Carson in brown ceramic with coloured glazed details, are integrated into the curved walls. A five-bay stained 'dalles de verre' style glass window in the Lady Chapel, depicting the Resurrection and designed in 1965 by Crear McCartney, is also present. The church includes a stone altar table with an indented cross, and a sculptural laminated timber tabernacle enclosing a metal sphere. Bespoke timber pews and vertical timber boarded doors are also features. An open timber screen with paired red ceramic crosses leads to a timber-lined and glazed former baptistery containing a radially carved stone base, formerly displaying a font bowl which was lost by 2013.