St Leonard's Parish Church, Brucefield Avenue, Dunfermline

St Leonard's Parish Church is a Romanesque-style church designed by Peter MacGregor Chalmers, built between 1903 and 1904, with its hall completed in 1908. It stands on Brucefield Avenue in Dunfermline.

The church has a rectangular plan oriented east to west, comprising a five-bay nave with irregular shorter aisles. The north aisle rises almost to full height with its own separate pitched roof, while the south aisle adjoins a short transept. The east end terminates in an apse. An L-shaped hall is attached to the east. The design features Romanesque detailing with narrow round-arched openings (except to the hall) and a distinctive conical-roofed circular-plan tower of Celtic derivation. The external walls are built in coursed rockfaced sandstone rubble with droved ashlar dressings. A base course exists to the tower only, with a band course running below windows and at cill level to the nave proper. Most openings have long and short surrounds; larger windows have chamfered reveals, while smaller ones have chamfered cills only. The gables are coped.

The south elevation, which contains the main entrance, features a shallow gabled ashlar porch with steps, positioned to the outer left of the nave. The porch has a plain tympanum set back within a moulded round-arched opening and contains a replacement two-leaf boarded timber door. A window sits above, with shorter clerestory windows to three bays to the right. Three bays of the lean-to aisle below have paired narrow windows set forward, with a single window to its left return. The transept gable projects to the outer right bay and contains a tall narrow hood-moulded window to its centre.

The north elevation shows a projecting lean-to-roofed section occupying most of the outer right bay of the nave, with a small window to the left. An entrance with a roll-moulded surround and two-leaf boarded timber door lies to the right return, with a window above to the left. The four-bay aisle is set forward to the left, with windows to the upper level of each bay and paired windows to each bay below. A tall narrow window occupies the gable to the right return.

The west end displays a pair of large windows set within the cross-finalled shouldered gable end of the nave, with a tall buttress at the centre.

The east end features a conical-roofed apse projecting to the centre with two windows. The cross-finalled gable end of the nave is set back behind. The gable end of the north aisle adjoins to the right, and a low harled projecting passage connects to the hall. A circular-plan tower adjoins the apse to the left, obscuring the south transept.

The tower is slightly tapered and six storeys tall with a circular plan and conical roof, positioned to the south of the apse. It has an architraved round-arched entrance with inner and outer roll-mouldings and a boarded timber door with circular handle. Small windows to alternate faces include a round-arched one to the ground floor, a triangular-headed one to the first floor, and arrowhead lights to upper levels. The top storey features larger round-arched windows with flanking nook-shafts and moulded heads to each of the four cardinal points.

The roofs are covered in grey slate with fixed-pane leaded lights, many containing stained glass. A single wallhead stack sits to the north aisle.

The interior features an open arch-braced timber roof. Round-arched arcades supported on circular piers with cushion capitals run the length of the nave, with the south arcade lower than the north and featuring clerestory above. A timber gallery to the north aisle is decorated with heraldic shields carved in the 1920s at a local craft school, depicting key figures in the Scottish Wars of Independence. A painting of the risen Christ and associated figures adorns the apse ceiling, created in 1927 by A Samuel, head of the local craft school.

Various stained glass windows include a pair depicting St Andrew and St Leonard (First World War memorials) in the apse, dating to circa 1920; a pair at the west end of the nave showing Christ as the 'Bread of Life' and 'True Vine' with one of the 'Good Shepherd' above the main entrance, all from the 1920s by Abbey Studio; King David (1930) and Madonna and Child (probably earlier) in the south aisle; St Mungo (1968) and Moses (1951 by Abbey Studio) in the north aisle.

A circular stone font is carved with interlaced Romanesque arcading. A carved Gothic font cover and lectern, made in the 1920s by Dr MacMillan, a local preacher, stands nearby. The communion table, prayer desks and pulpit are thought to be original furnishings. Apse chairs were designed by local architect R H Motion. A pair of seven-branched candelabra based on those in the Temple at Jerusalem were made at the local craft school. An organ built in 1910 by Henry Willis and Sons Ltd remains in place. Plain timber pews furnish the nave.

The hall is single storey with six bays and an L-plan, attached to the north aisle of the church via a single-storey harled passage. The west elevation features a round-arched entrance to the right with a two-leaf boarded timber door with strap hinges, and three regularly fenestrated bays to the left with chamfered cills. A gable end adjoining the connecting passage sits to the outer left with a window to its right return. The east elevation is harled with six regularly fenestrated bays featuring chamfered ashlar architraves. The south gable end displays a tall round-arched window at the centre with flanking outer buttresses. The north elevation presents a harled gable end with a set-back window to the right. A late 20th-century hall projects to the outer right. Replacement timber windows with top hoppers have been installed. The roof is covered in grey slate with a wallhead stack to the left of the west gable and round cans.

A low coursed rockfaced sandstone rubble boundary wall encloses the south and west boundaries, punctuated by piers at intervals. The squared ashlar coping, which is partially replaced, is chamfered to the outer edge and surmounted by replacement railings. Two pairs of gatepiers sit to the south, both with ridged coping decorated with cross patee to the outer face; wrought-iron gates hang at the eastern pair. A taller sandstone rubble wall with chamfered ashlar coping encloses the north boundary.