St Marie's Roman Catholic Church, Dunnikier Road, Kirkcaldy

St Marie's Roman Catholic Church, Dunnikier Road, Kirkcaldy

Designed by John Bennie Wilson and constructed between 1899 and 1901, this is a Tudor Gothic church originally built as a Free Church. The building is positioned prominently on Dunnikier Road, with a tower and squat spire positioned to the northwest. The plan comprises a two-bay aisled nave with a dividing pilaster, a southwest transept, and a northeast hall.

The external walls are constructed from squared and snecked bull-faced rubble with dressed ashlar quoins and margins. Two-stage sawtooth and pyramidal-coped buttresses project at intervals. A chamfered plinth runs around the base, with a cill course to the first stage on the west side. The second stage has a coped batter on the north and south elevations. Moulded string courses divide the stages of the tower and transept, with an architraved cornice at the eaves.

The windows throughout feature tracery and continuous hoodmoulds to the west gable incorporating a foliate corbel of an image niche containing Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, added after 1975. The hall has hoodmoulds with foliate label stops. Architraved windows with relieving arches appear to the first stage of the west gable, with chamfered reveals and stone mullions throughout.

The west elevation facing Dunnikier Road is dominated by a central gable. At the first stage are three traceried tripartite windows in square-headed architraved surrounds. Above these are two tall double lancet windows flanking a cusped image niche, with a further small corbelled niche (now empty) in the ball-finialled gablehead. To the left of centre is a bay containing a buttress-flanked approach with steps leading to a slightly advanced porch. The porch features a heavily moulded pedimented doorway, an empty corbelled image niche, and a cross finial above. A narrow light with stained glass glazing opens onto the return to the left. The tower rises behind this section. To the right is a lower, recessed transeptal bay with steps and flanking dwarf walls leading up to a deeply moulded doorway with a narrow light above.

The tower is three stages tall, surmounted by an octagonal spire. The first stage contains the porch to the west, a narrow light below a tripartite window to the north, and is engaged on the east and south sides. The second stage is largely blank, with a narrow light close to its base on the west and traceried windows in small square architraved openings near the top on each face. The third stage has paired pinnacles at the angles and a set-back belfry with louvered, traceried openings on each cardinal face, below a finialled and crocketed octagonal ashlar roof.

The north elevation facing Victoria Road shows four trefoil-headed tripartite windows in square-headed surrounds at the first stage, below a coped batter that gives way to the second stage. The second stage features two depressed-arch, five-light, traceried windows flanking a broad dividing pilaster. The advanced tower stands at the outer right, with a buttress to the left leading to a depressed-arch hall doorway containing two-leaf part-glazed timber doors. An advanced hall stands beyond to the left, with a broad hoodmoulded four-light traceried window below a corbelled image niche in the gablehead. A pagoda-roofed, louvered timber ventilator is set back on the roof ridge above.

The south elevation mirrors the north elevation but includes a narrow light to the first stage and a three-light traceried depressed-arch window to the second stage of an advanced gabled transept to the left. A blocked tripartite window occupies the first stage of the nave at the outer right. A low flat-roofed hall extension, not included in this listing, stands against this elevation.

The west elevation of the original hall is barely visible, being largely obscured by the later extension and surrounding buildings.

The roof is finished with small grey slates and terracotta ridge tiles. Ashlar-coped skews, some moulded, terminate the gables with flat skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative fixings serve the church.

Internally, the church is galleried on three sides. Timber pews with kneelers occupy the ground floor, with later gallery pews above. A corniced boarded timber dado runs throughout, with panelled gallery fronts every fourth panel featuring open fretwork. A broad round-headed ashlar arcade with polygonal piers carries the chancel arch. Two-leaf panelled and part-glazed timber doors with multi-pane leaded glass provide access.

The narthex contains stairs to the tower and transept, each fitted with barley-twist cast-iron balusters. Architraved doorcases to right and left lead to the nave; the centre of the wall has been altered with a modern three-light window looking onto the nave. Depressed-arch doorways access the galleries, with the western one providing access to the organ. A plain panelled reredos and tall dado stand within the chancel. The roof is boarded timber, supported on stone corbels with wall-posts and braces on foliate corbels.

The greater hall to the northeast has a boarded dado and roof with corbelled wall-posts and decorative cast-iron air vents. A single coloured light featuring an angel illuminates the porch, whilst a three-light memorial window serves the northeast hall. The belfry is accessed externally from high up on the second stage of the tower.

Coped rubble boundary walls enclose the property.