St Andrews Church, Victoria Road, Kirkcaldy

St Andrews Church, Victoria Road, Kirkcaldy

A large classical galleried church designed by William Dow in 1902, with alterations made by William Williamson in 1905 and further changes in 1975. The building comprises a 4-bay aisled nave with a single bay vestry and features a bellcote. It is constructed in red sandstone ashlar with coursed rubble to the rear, red sandstone quoins and dressings, and incorporates a base, cill and string courses with a plain frieze, eaves cornice and a deep, stepped blocking course. The openings include some round-headed examples above ground level, together with pedimented doorcases, architraved surrounds, chamfered reveals and stone transoms and mullions.

The principal north elevation features a central portico with steps leading up to a 4-leaf panelled timber door with a carved and moulded pediment in its own doorcase, flanked by Doric columns. Above this sits a 6-part, round-headed transomed window. The centre bay is flanked by pilasters below Ionic columns and bipartite windows with decorated frieze and balustrade beneath corniced gallery windows and glazed oculi with laurel-leaf detail. Giant order pilasters at the outer angles support an entablature and pediment. Flanking porches on either side have steps and dwarf walls leading to 2-leaf panelled timber doors set in broken pedimented doorcases with further segmental moulding, and corniced tripartite windows above with cavetto cill courses.

The east elevation, facing Victoria Gardens, contains a raised basement housing the church hall, with a door to the right and 5 windows to the left. The ground floor displays 6 windows with moulded aprons and heads, and 3 round-headed windows with dividing pilasters to the gallery level, topped by a stepped blocking course. A polygonal bellcote on a lead plinth with a balustrade sits below an open columned stage, cavetto cornice and finialled dome positioned to the right at the roof ridge. An advanced bay to the outer right has a small window to the first stage with a pediment incorporated into the string course, and a round-headed window with full-width pediment. A slightly advanced bay to the left contains a pedimented door in a moulded segmental surround with a small window above. A further advanced, pedimented lower bay to the outer left, part of the 1905 extension, has a small window to the basement and a corniced window above.

The west elevation mirrors the east elevation in composition but features a recessed bay to the right with a window and a lower piended bay (extension) with a bipartite window beyond.

The south elevation comprises a broad gabled bay and a lower, slightly advanced gable of the original chancel with a glazed oculus at its centre. A further advanced, pitch-roofed lower extension features a dominant corbelled chimney breast rising to a wallhead stack, with narrow bipartite windows in the flanking bays and a further small window to the outer right.

Throughout, the building displays leaded, multi-pane glazing with some coloured panes and margins, grey slate roofing, cavetto-coped ashlar stacks and ashlar-coped skews, and a decorative cast-iron weathervane.

The interior is fully fitted and includes a narthex with a mosaic floor and fine pedimented doorways fitted with 2-leaf part-glazed, panelled timber screen doors. A bronze memorial commemorates both World Wars. Stone staircases with decorative cast-iron balusters and timber handrails provide access. The nave retains its original fixed timber pews and polygonal columns supporting the gallery. The gallery arcade springs from part-fluted Ionic columns and features panelled, rounded gallery fronts. A decorative timber roof with cast-iron air vents spans the nave. The raised chancel area contains a communion table facing a pedimented pulpit with carved backboards and flanking steps. A raised centre tripartite chancel arch, with organ pipes now blocking the original chancel window, frames the space. Boarded timber dadoes line the walls. The full-size basement accommodates halls, a vestry and a session room.