St John's Church, Church Street, Inverkeithing

St John's Church, Church Street, Inverkeithing

St John's Church was built in 1753 as a single-storey, five-bay rectangular-plan Secession church. The building was substantially altered in 1799, when it was widened, heightened, and fitted with galleries. Further renovation took place in 1882.

The church is constructed of coursed rubble with moulded dressings and stugged quoins with margins to the east (principal) elevation. It sits on high ground above the road, bordered by a retaining wall. The principal east elevation features a central pedimented ashlar porch with a round arched door and side lights (now blocked with boarded timber), flanked by full-height large round arched windows with lancet mullions. Timber-panelled doors and round arched fanlights with lancet arched astragals occupy the outer bays. The north elevation has two windows at gallery level. The west (rear) elevation contains two ground floor windows and a cast-iron rooflight. The south elevation adjoins the church hall link at ground floor level, with a square window to the left and two windows at gallery level; a ball finial crowns the gable apex.

The windows are 12-pane timber sash and case windows, with the large round arched windows to the east fitted with timber lancet mullions. The pitched roof is covered with grey slates and has ashlar skews.

The interior features timber queen-strut roof trusses with quatrefoil detailing and drop pendants. Plain box pews line the church. A large grained pine pulpit with console stands before the former Minister's entrance at the centre of the east wall, positioned between the large round arched windows. Entrance vestibules and passageways to the north and south lead to the rear gallery stairs, with two internal fixed windows lighting both passages. Tongue and groove timber dadoing lines the walls. Turnpike stone stairs in the south-west and north-west corners provide access to the gallery. A Puginesque oak communion table and a small oak organ to the right complete the fittings. The gallery, running along the north, west, and south sides, is of semi-octagonal plan with a corniced timber-panelled front supported by four cast-iron columns with neo-Egyptian palm leaf capitals.

Adjoining the church to the south are squared and snecked, tooled stone vestry and hall buildings. A lean-to stone-built boiler house stands to the right of the hall porch at street level.

The church hall and offices occupy a two-storey, five-bay (with two wide bays to the first floor) rectangular-plan 19th-century building linked to the church by a pitched-roof connection. The ground floor accommodates the church hall, whilst the first floor contains the former church officer's residence. The main building is constructed of squared snecked sandstone rubble to the west face and rendered to the north and south; the connecting link is of random rubble. The east elevation features a central sandstone gabled porch with three windows to the right (part of the link) and three windows to the left (part of the two-storey building), with a door to the far left leading to the hall and upper flat. The west elevation comprises a two-storey rendered section to the right with a central forestair flanked by ground floor windows and a door, with three first floor windows above; a single-storey link to the left contains two windows to the right and a small flat roof extension. The windows are timber sash and case, with the hall windows featuring four-pane timber frames with stylised lancet detailing. Coped rendered gablehead stacks with circular clay cans crown the roof.

The high retaining wall along Church Street to the east features wide central steps leading to the church, topped with a decorative cast-iron arch and street lamp. Coped random rubble boundary walls to the rear separate the church and hall gardens.