St Serf's Episcopal Church, Cromwell Road, Burntisland

St Serf's Episcopal Church, Cromwell Road, Burntisland

Sketch plans by F L Pearson of London with details by W R Simpson of Burntisland. Built 1904–5. A simple Gothic rectangular aisless church with apsidal chancel and dominant belfry at the gabled west end. The building features angle buttresses and is constructed in rusticated ashlar with droved quoins and dressings. A raked plinth runs around the base, with continuous moulded string course that encompasses downpipes, eaves course, hoodmoulds and stone mullions. The windows are lancet form.

West Elevation: A memorial stone is set at the centre below the string course. Two tall lancet windows with hoodmoulds extend up into the gablehead, flanked by battered buttresses with saw-tooth coping to windowhead height. The belfry occupies the gablehead with a blind base and moulded string course below two depressed-arch openings. Each face of the belfry has gablet coping, and a cast-iron weathervane with cockerel finial crowns the centre.

North (Entrance) Elevation: A moulded pointed-arch doorway leads into a gabled stone-roofed stone porch at the outer right, with small flanking cluster columns and circular capitals below a continuous hoodmould. A tiled step leads to a deep-set boarded 2-leaf timber door with large cast-iron hinges. Three bipartite windows sit over a continuous string course to the left of the door. A 2-stage angle buttress beyond divides the nave and chancel, with saw-tooth coping below a gablet breaking the eaves and saw-tooth coped skew leading to a Celtic cross at the roof ridge. Five windows above a continuous string course and slightly raised wallhead sit to the chancel at the outer left.

South Elevation: Four pointed-arch bipartite windows sit over a continuous string course to the centre and left of centre. A flat-roofed extension extends to the right in a return, with five steps leading to a boarded door with decorative cast-iron hinges and hoodmould below a pointed-arch. A continuous string course on the return to the left accompanies a 3-light plate tracery window under the string course to the right. A gable end occupies the outer right with two pointed-arch windows, bipartite to the left and quadripartite to the right.

East Elevation: The 3-sided chancel apse features two blind oculi encircling quatrefoils to the east and one each to the southeast and northeast, all above a continuous string course. A piended roof is crowned with a decorative cast-iron finial. A small dry-dashed store sits within a re-entrant to the south.

The church is finished with small square-pane margined leaded lights, some of which are coloured and stained glass. Red tiles cover the roof. Saw-tooth coped ashlar skews with flat skewputts and a coped ashlar stack complete the exterior.

Interior: A part-glazed and roofed timber inner porch sits opposite a stone font with a 3-side bench pew. Dado-height timber panelling and a roll-moulded stepped string course run around the 3-bay nave, which contains timber bench pews. A pointed timber arch and door in a 3-stage coped surround open to the southeast. An open beamed timber ceiling rests on stone corbels.

The slightly narrower full-height pointed-arch chancel with round columns extends for 5 bays. A panelled and carved timber pulpit sits at the left. Choir stalls with an organ loft sit behind a pointed arch to the right, with a timber door and sedilia beyond. A stepped pointed apsidal arch screen with flanking narrow arches and slender polished columns divides the chancel. Stone roundels with quatrefoil decoration occupy the spandrels. A piscina sits to the right and a credence to the left of the altar, which stands at the centre below wallhead cornicing and beneath a baldacchino.

Stained glass windows illustrate texts including "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation", "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" and the Light of the World. A vestry is positioned to the southeast.

Boundary Walls, Gatepiers and Gates: Low coped-ashlar boundary walls feature inset railings. Pyramidal-coped ashlar gatepiers support decorative gates.