St Brycedale Church Of Scotland, St Brycedale Avenue, Kirkcaldy

St Brycedale Church of Scotland, Kirkcaldy

A vast rectangular-plan, aisled gothic church designed by James Matthews of Aberdeen and built between 1878 and 1881, with a ground floor conversion undertaken in 1988. The building is constructed in bull-faced Fordell stone masonry with polished ashlar dressings.

The composition features a tall 4-stage tower and spire to the north-east corner, a rose window with flanking pyramidal-roofed towers to the south, and a 6-bay nave with dividing buttresses. A 5-bay gabled vestry and church hall adjoin to the south-east. The south-east tower incorporates a 5-bay gabled vestry and church hall. Decorative features include 2-stage saw-tooth coped battered buttresses to the nave, 4-stage buttresses to the north-east tower, 4-stage buttresses with pinnacles to the north, and 3-stage buttresses with pinnacles to the north-west. There is an ashlar base with cill courses, a decorative mutuled cornice with blocking course, and string courses to the towers. Moulded doorcases feature pointed and Caernarvon-arched openings, trefoil-headed windows, and a glazed oculus. Hoodmoulds with floriated label-stops decorate all openings except those at the first stage of the nave and hall. Chamfered reveals and stone mullions are throughout, with boarded doors adorned with decorative wrought-iron hinges.

The principal north elevation is a 2-stage cross-finialled gable with arcaded openings and a raised, deeply moulded doorcase to the centre with paired colonnettes under Corinthian capitals. A boarded tympanum and broad 2-leaf door sit below. Flanking 2-light traceried windows with deeply chamfered reveals flank the doorcase, with blind oculi on either side. A string course sits above the cill of a large 5-light traceried window with a glazed quatrefoil in the gablehead. A cross-finialled, 4-stage, pinnacled buttress with a polygonal 4th stage stands to the right. A 2-stage bay to the outer right comprises the north face of a pinnacled porch to the west elevation, featuring a Caernarvon-arched doorhead in a pointed-arch moulded door frame with flanking colonnettes under Corinthian capitals. A blind quatrefoil sits in the tympanum with a hoodmould. A string course abuts the cill of a 2-light traceried window at the 2nd stage below the mutuled cornice, with a pinnacled buttress beyond to the right.

The north-east tower is a 4-stage structure with angle buttresses and a lucarned spire. An ashlar plinth carries a moulded string course and blank courses below a further string course. Gablet-coped angle buttresses form flanking piers to the north face with 2 narrow lights above. The west face also has flanking buttress piers and a Caernarvon-arched doorway with 2 narrow lights over. Only a single buttress pier appears to the south and east faces; that to the south has a single light to the ground and 1st floor on the left, with the nave abutting beyond. The 2nd stage features a narrow saw-tooth coped batter below a tall lancet to the north, east and west, with a hoodmould forming a continuous string course to each face. Each face of the 3rd stage has a dividing string course and cill course giving way to timber-louvered paired lancets with nook-shafts bearing abacus capitals and finialled hoodmoulds. Almost full-height coped and battered, gablet-coped flanking buttresses flank the stage. The 4th stage carries a blind parapet and chamfered angles with water spouts, giving way to polygonal corner turrets with cross finials flanking a set-back, ball-finialled polygonal spire. A small window in a moulded frame sits below a cross-finialled gablet with a small oval panel to the cardinal faces. Three pairs of string courses with lucarnes to alternate faces rise above the middle pair.

The east elevation facing Kirk Wynd is a 2-stage nave with paired lights to each bay at the lower 1st stage and raked cills to 3-light traceried windows and a mutuled cornice at the taller principal 2nd stage. Three tiny lucarnes sit above. The bay to the outer right contains the north-east tower. A slightly advanced bay to the left features a finialled pyramidal-roofed tower with a door at ground level, a string course above and a tall window below two further windows. A string course forms a hoodmould, mutuled cornice and lucarne to each face of the tower roof. An angle buttress sits to the right and a small door opens on the return to the right.

The west elevation features a nave matching the east elevation. A slightly advanced 2-stage cross-finialled gabled porch to the outer left has a blank 1st stage with a 2-light traceried window to the 2nd stage and flanking gablet-coped, pinnacled, angled buttresses. The return to the right is blank; the return to the left is detailed as on the north elevation. A slightly advanced pyramidal-roofed tower to the outer right matches that on the east elevation. A further small opening sits close to the ground on the return to the left.

The south elevation has its lower stage obscured by the church hall. A cross-finialled centre gable carries a large rose window with a blind trefoil in the gablehead. Flanking finialled pyramidal-roofed towers each display 2 windows below a string course forming a hoodmould, mutuled cornice and lucarne above.

Windows throughout are glazed with multi-pane coloured diamond- and square-pattern, margined leaded lights containing stained glass. The roof is covered in grey slates with coped ashlar skews.

The interior comprises a narthex with plain cornice, boarded dado and segmental-headed openings, fitted with small decorative timber pews. A small trefoil-headed window to the right is flanked by brass memorial tablets for the First and Second World Wars. A modern screen door leads to a foyer of the altered ground floor which retains Corinthian columns but is infilled to form rooms to the nave and west nave aisle, with a coffee bar to the east nave aisle. A boarded dado lines the north-east stair tower leading to gallery level with an infilled floor. A pipe organ and raised chancel area with quatrefoil panelling occupy the south end. The roof is an arched brace type with decorative brackets. Moulded arcades on slender, clustered cast-iron columns with Corinthian capitals and decorative consoles carry the outer arches. The floor to the north, east and west is raked with boarded timber pews and moulded ends. Carved, blind arcaded gallery fronts are retained.

The stained glass includes a rose window, 18 feet in diameter, with the text 'God is Light' on an open bible to the centre quatrefoil with 16 branching rays and 16 quatrefoils, made by Adam & Small in 1881. A north gallery memorial window titled 'Self-Sacrifice' features Michael the Archangel to the centre quatrefoil and a phoenix to the centre light, designed by Douglas Strachan in 1922–23. Memorial windows to the east aisle commemorate Provost Michael Beveridge with scenes 'The Call of Nathaniel' and 'Andrew With His Brother Peter', and John Thomson Stocks with 'The Parable of the Talents'. A missionary window depicts 'Carstairs Douglas preaching to a Chinaman'. A window to Patrick Don Swan shows 'The Call and The Burial of Moses', designed by Edward Burne-Jones and made by Morris & Co in 1892. Windows to the west aisle include a memorial to Isabella Nairn with 'The Resurrection and The Life', a memorial to Robert Nairn with 'By the Waters of Babylon' also by Burne-Jones in 1889, and a window to Fanny Stocks depicting 'The Virtuous Mother' from Proverbs.

The church hall is a 5-bay, L-plan gabled structure to the south. Its east elevation facing Kirk Wynd features a gablet-roofed porch with a hoodmoulded door to the outer left and 4 bays to the right with paired lights and pinnacled buttresses to the outer angles. The south elevation is asymmetrical with fenestration including an advanced and buttressed finialled gable to the right with a raised centre triple light and a mandorla in the gablehead; a recessed, harled face to the left has a triple light to a gabled bay at centre with a corbelled stack piercing the gablehead. The north elevation features a hoodmoulded, raised centre triple light with a small quatrefoil above in a finialled gablehead. The west elevation displays 5 windows with relieving arches except that to the right, a corbelled stack above in the gablehead, and a flat-roofed extension in the re-entrant angle to the right.

Boundary walls are semi-circular-coped rubble construction. Gate piers are in chamfered ashlar with decorative cast-iron gates.