15 Bridge Street, Saline

15 Bridge Street in Saline is a building designed by Louis Mercer in 1844, originally constructed as a Free Church in a picturesque style reminiscent of cottage or school architecture. The structure is a rectangular-plan hall-church featuring an advanced bay at the center of the gabled street (south) elevation. It has been altered and is currently being converted into a dwelling as of 1990.

The building is made from coursed rubble and ashlar with raised margins, topped by a broad-eaved, low-pitched slated roof. The south gabled front displays a nave-and-aisle arrangement, with the main roof extending over the advanced center. Decorative features include timber-moulded mutule brackets at the eaves and elaborately carved bargeboarding at the advanced center, which originally featured scroll and fleur-de-lis motifs, along with a timber finial and pendant with bosses at the apex. There are finely carved brackets with bosses at the angles, projecting to the south and east-west.

Unfortunately, a wide slapping in the center has led to the loss of the original round-headed leaded-glass window, which is being reinstated with a roundel to be introduced above in 1990. A wide band course marks the springing point of the window arch in the advanced bay. There are also a pair of flanking doorways at the aisles, featuring shallow raised margins and arched lintel details, with the original doors being four-panelled with lugged mouldings.

A finely moulded arch bellcote sits on a moulded base with scrolls, topped by a weather vane at the apex. A single stack over the north gable remains, while the matching stack on the south has been lost, along with tapering chimney-cans on double-cube bases. Two axial ventilators have also been lost. The east and west elevations are plain with bipartite windows and splayed reveals on the interior.

The interior has been mostly gutted as of 1990, revealing slim chamfered timber supports and a collarbeam roof, with wall rubble stripped to bare. Access to the basement was originally through a lean-to attached at the north, but the basement is now blind except for two sunk and boarded openings with chamfered dressings and stugged lintels on the west side. A rubble garden wall and a shouldered Tudor arched garden gateway with wide chamfered margins can be found to the northwest of the church, presumably contemporary to the building.