Humbie Parish Church And Broun Aisle

Humbie Parish Church and Broun Aisle

A Gothic parish church designed by James Tod and dated 1800, built on the site of a pre-Reformation church in an ox bow of Humbie Burn on steep ground. The building is constructed of squared and snecked tooled sandstone rubble with stugged ashlar dressings, featuring lancet windows and chamfered arrises to openings.

The church follows a T-plan, with a two-storey vestry added in 1846 on the north side of the nave and a chancel projecting from the east gable, probably designed by W J Walker Todd in 1930 (he was paid £63 in 1928 for reporting and advising on the church). The roof features gablet coping to skews with bracketed skewputts, added by David Bryce in 1866.

The west gable has a gabled porch at its centre with a mannered lintel and date above, two-leaf doors with decorative wrought-iron hinges, and small lancets on each return. A two-light window to the gallery sits above. A gabled stone bellcote with a bell dated 1953 crowns the roof.

The south elevation displays two bays with tall two-light windows divided by buttresses with off-sets. The main east gable carries a cross finial and an arrow slit window at its apex, with one lancet window flanking the vestry jamb on each side of the re-entrant.

The vestry of 1846 is advanced from the centre of the nave's north elevation. It has two closely grouped lancets at ground level, two taller lancets in the upper storey, and a blind arrow slit at the apex. A gablehead stack rises from the roof. The west return has a doorway with a mannered lintel and 1800 date above in a circular thistled panel. An entrance to the crypt on the east return features wrought-iron railings.

The chancel is a gabled projection from the east gable with a tall three-light Y-traceried window and three-light windows with cusping to each return.

The building is roofed in grey-green slates with decorative cast-iron gutter brackets. Windows feature diamond-pane leaded glazing in a regular pattern.

The interior has boarded dado with whitewash above and an open scissor-braced timber roof. Panelled pitch pine galleries occupy the west end and the space above the vestry, supported by timber piers. The church contains two decorative painted glass windows and a stained glass three-light dedicated to St David. The organ, installed circa 1840 and crafted by David Hamilton, has a decorative Gothic dark wood case. This organ was transferred from the Norwegian Lutheran Kirk, Leith, in 1987.

The Broun Aisle, dated 1864 and sited by the west gate on rising ground, was designed by David Bryce and adjoined to retaining walls. It is built of squared, snecked and tooled cream sandstone with ashlar dressings and a moulded cornice. The south gable end has a pointed arch doorway with hoodmould, a dedication panel above, and a Broun shield at the apex, topped with a decorative cross finial. Three bipartite openings with transoms to the east feature decorative cast-iron railings and leaded glazing pattern above. Grey dressed stone buttresses divide the lancets, with one positioned to the east of the doorway. A narrow lancet sits in the north gable end.

The aisle was erected by Archibald Broun of Johnstonburn "in lieu of the burial place of his family within the church, which in deference to the feelings of the parishioners, he has now closed".

The graveyard is bounded by rubble walls, with an office to the north erected in 1842. The graveyard contains fine gravestones from the earlier church, classically detailed and displaying a variety of memento mori.

The church remains in use as an ecclesiastical building under the Church of Scotland.