Balgonie And Windygates Parish Church, Main Street, Milton Of Balgonie

The Balgonie and Windygates Parish Church, located on Main Street, Milton of Balgonie, was built in 1836. It is an aisless, T-shaped church with a crowstepped gable and a corbelled bellcote. The church is constructed from stugged, squared, and snecked rubble stone with droved dressings, long and short work quoins, a base course, and eaves course. Pointed arch openings feature chamfered reveals, hoodmoulds with label stops, stone transoms, and mullions.

The west elevation has a crowstepped gable with a two-leaf panelled timber door within a hoodmoulded doorway at the centre, a small, part-blocked window to the right, and a large, bipartite, traceried window above. A corbelled bellcote sits at the gablehead, featuring a pedimented pointed arch opening on each face below a small, finialled spire. The east elevation is similar to the west.

The south elevation features two large, hoodmoulded, transomed, two-light traceried windows flanking the centre, alongside pal stones at the outer angles. The north elevation has an advanced, crowstepped T projection with a window similar to those on the other elevations. A recessed face to the right has a blinded window and a low, piended extension with a boarded timber door and a small window in the re-entrant angle. A further small window is found on the return to the right. To the left, a recessed face has a narrow, blinded window.

The windows are glazed with diamond-pattern leaded glass, with coloured margins on the south windows. Windows to the extension are fixed timber windows with a four-pane glazing pattern. The roof is covered with grey slates. A small, coped ashlar stack with a can is present, along with ashlar coped skews and cast iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers.

Inside, a three-sided gallery features blind arcading to the fronts, with a Roman-faced clock in the centre of the north gallery, supported by cast iron shafts. A full complement of box pews, some relocated to the west gallery, is present. The south wall features margined, leaded windows flanking a decorative pulpit with a finialled, ogee-canopied sounding board. A panelled altar table displays WWI war memorial plaques for Milton and Windygates, alongside a harmonium, font, and chair. The north transept contains memorial stones to former ministers, Rev J Moncrieff and Rev W Bain. Plain cornicing completes the interior. A small vestibule features a boarded timber dado, a bell pull, a timber stair leading to the gallery, a pointed arch, panelled timber door opposite the main entrance, and a similar vestibule to the east.

The surrounding graveyard contains a collection of mid-19th century headstones and monuments, including a pedimented upright slab with a carved obelisk and a female figure ('In Memory of Elizabeth Langlands, 1858'), and a monument to Robert Duff (died 1867) with fine floreate carving and scrolled coping. Headstones represent prominent local families, such as Andrew and David Durie (died 1874 and 1894), and a marble slab set into the west boundary wall commemorating 'Henry Cecil, 4th child of CRD Bethune Esq', who died in 1854.

Low, saddleback coped squared rubble boundary walls enclose the church to the south, while semicircular coped rubble walls define the north, east, and west boundaries. Pyramidal coped, square ashlar gatepiers support cast iron gates.