Carriden Parish Church, Carriden Brae, Bo'Ness

P MacGregor Chalmers, 1908-09. Simple Romanesque church with imposing 4-stage square tower to W and domestic Baronial details. Aisled nave with clerestory, chancel and apse. Session house with Baronial stair-turret to SE. Squared and snecked bull-faced sandstone with ashlar dressings. Base course to tower. Round-headed windows, predominantly chamfered openings.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: symmetrical elevation with slightly tapered advanced tower flanked by gable of nave and recessed lower north and south aisles. Round-arched entrance flanked by receding triple cluster of engaged columns with scalloped capitals surmounted by dogtooth ornament and Romanesque carving. Tower stages separated by string courses, some machicolation at eaves course, pyramidal roof. Stages 3 and 4 mirrored on all elevations.

N ELEVATION: off-centre roll-moulded round-arched shallow entrance porch to left of 3-bay low north aisle. Clerestory above. Taller, advanced, gabled 3-bay baptistry chapel to left with tall paired windows.

S ELEVATION: to right 2-bay gable of session house with stair turret to left. To left advanced low 5-bay south aisle with clerestory above. Entrance door in re-entrant angle.

To W 2-leaf 4-panel timber door with small leaded panes to upper panels, leaded fanlight above. 3rd and 4th tower stages have paired roll-moulded windows with raised imposts and central column. W gable ends of N and S aisles have bipartite windows set in ashlar round-arched recesses. Excepting stained glass, windows predominantly glazed with small leaded panes, some with top hoppers. Graded grey slates. Gable end stack to Session House. Seemingly random carved scripture panels and crosses to exterior and interior.

INTERIOR: timber and leaded glass entrance screen to W. 6-bay nave with round-arched arcade, articulated by nook shafts, supported by circular ashlar columns and clerestory with open barrel-vaulted timber ceiling with stone corbels. Cill course to clerestory. All capitals different. Predominantly squared and snecked bull-faced sandstone with ashlar dressings. Chancel apse with blind arcading to ground, stained glass, corbel table and rib-vaulting. Capitals at entrance to apse depict the New Testament. To NE baptistry chapel apse with recently restored contemporary ceiling painting, entered through chevroned arch. Circular stone font. En suite square oak pulpit, communion table, and lectern with blind arcading and Romanesque details. Plain timber pews. Good quality ironwork goods to interior. Various stained glass windows: St George, Christ - Alpha and Omega, and St James in Chancel apse. St Andrew and St Margaret by A C Whalen, circa 1974. Double window in north aisle by G Young, Johnston & Bennet, Glasgow,1948. St Leonard and St Cecilia by Roland Milton, c2000.

GATE PIERS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: gabled stone gate piers to W. Squared and snecked bull-faced stepped sandstone boundary wall to W. To E stepped coursed rubble wall with semicircular coping.