Erskine And St Andrews Parish Church, Queen Anne Street, Dunfermline

Erskine and St Andrews Parish Church, Queen Anne Street, Dunfermline

This is a classical former Secession chapel designed by David Whyte and built between 1798 and 1800, with later substantial additions and internal remodelling. The building presents a 5-bay rectangular plan with pedimented gables and thermal windows to the original structure. Its principal materials are coursed droved sandstone with lightly droved ashlar dressings, complemented by a base course to the north and south elevations and an eaves course throughout. The design is symmetrical, featuring segmental-headed lower windows and architraved windows to the main block, with upper windows round-arched. V-jointed angle quoins mark the principal elevation, while coped gables complete the external form. A Renaissance porch was added to the south, and other additions extend to the north, east and west.

The south (principal) elevation is dominated by a 2-storey porch at its centre, with a projecting ground floor rounded at the edges and a flat roof concealed by a parapet above a cornice. The entrance bay projects slightly and features a round-arched entrance flanked by Doric pilasters supporting an entablature, with a 2-leaf panelled timber door and fanlight. Curved bays flank the entrance with windows to either side. The upper floor is pedimented and set back, divided into 3 bays by Ionic pilasters supporting an entablature with a dentilled cornice that extends to both returns. The centre bay contains an architraved window with frieze and pediment, with architraved flanking windows featuring friezes and cornices. Plain piers surmounted by urns project to either side at ground floor level, and a single ground floor window appears on each return. Tall flanking round-arched windows set back into the main block frame the outer bays, which contain both lower and upper windows.

The west elevation contains a porch extension at its centre with a flat roof hidden behind a low parapet above a cornice. A window occupies the centre, while a round-arched entrance to the right return features a 2-leaf panelled timber door with fanlight. Flanking lower and upper windows set back to the main block are all segmental-headed, with a round-arched window above. A 3-light mullioned thermal window appears within the pedimented gable, topped with a later urn finial.

The north elevation is dominated by a single-storey hall extension wrapping around the corner of the east elevation to the left, featuring a round-arched traceried window in its gable end. To the right, an irregular fenestration pattern marks a partially rendered piended-roofed section. An entrance on the right return comprises a 2-leaf panelled timber door and a border-glazed rectangular fanlight. Two windows set back to the right of the main block are accompanied by a central round-arched upper window and flanking pairs of segmental-headed upper windows.

The east elevation displays single-storey ground floor extensions to both left and right. A 3-light mullioned thermal window within the pediment is crowned with a later urn finial.

The windows comprise multi-pane fixed timber frames to the principal elevation, with two leaded stained glass examples; elsewhere, mostly aluminium replacements have been installed. The roofs are of grey slate with an octagonal ventilator lantern topped by a finalled conical roof at the ridge centre of the main block. A small stack with a moulded round terracotta can sits set back slightly from the pedimented south porch gable; a slender brick wallhead stack was added to the north side, and a gablehead stack serves the hall extension to the north.

A session house to the south and a west porch (originally one of a pair) were constructed in the earlier to mid-19th century. Hall extensions to the north and east were added in the later 19th century and again in 1985. Substantial alterations and interior remodelling took place between 1897 and 1899, carried out by John Houston.

The interior was comprehensively recast in 1897, with most plasterwork decoration dating from this period, as do the timber balustrades flanking a pair of staircases to the gallery. A semicircular-plan gallery supported on cast-iron columns appears to be original to the 1798-1800 build. Two large stained glass windows on the south wall, created by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in 1903, depict scenes from the Resurrection. A circular stained glass window on the north wall, apparently depicting Christ and dating to circa 1875, was originally positioned in the south wall.

A boundary wall encloses the site on the south, west and part of the north sides. Constructed from coursed droved sandstone with ashlar coping, it steps up along the terrace on which the church sits. A wide entranceway flanks steps to the south, with Egyptian-style cast-iron lamp standards positioned at the top.