New Abbey Parish Church, Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline

New Abbey Parish Church, Dunfermline

A cruciform-plan Perpendicular Gothic Revival aisled church designed by William Burn between 1818 and 1821, with later alterations by R R Anderson in 1905. The church features a central crossing tower and is constructed in droved sandstone ashlar with polished ashlar dressings.

The nave comprises three bays with an additional western bay adjoining the nave of Dunfermline Abbey. A pair of flanking stair vestibules extends to the western end. The church is divided into bays by full-height stepped gablet-headed buttresses. Hood-moulded Gothic windows, mainly with panel tracery, light the nave with aisle windows to each bay and clerestory windows set back. At the western termination of the nave proper, a pair of buttresses at right angles is topped by one pinnacle comprising a hexagonal shaft surmounted by a hexagonal cone with crocket finial. The western bay is set back with a corbelled parapet to aisle and nave. It contains a Y-traceried window to the aisle and a blind triangular-headed window with flanking nook shafts above, plus a round-arched clerestory window set back.

The eastern end features a large window incorporating a traceried rose with carved heads as hood-mould stops and a cusped panel rising above like the head of an ogee with sprocketed finial. A similar trefoiled panel sits at the apex of the gable above, surmounted by a cross finial. A low pentagonal apse of a sessions house projects from a rectangular section below, with lancet windows to all except the outer flanking bays. The entrance has a studded panelled timber door to the outer right bay. Flanking hexagonal corner towers, each with four band courses and a course of pendant triangles, are surmounted by hexagonal conical pinnacles with crocket finials. Flanking aisles each have a window. Buttresses set at right angles at the eastern corners of the chancel include a pinnacle comprising a hexagonal shaft surmounted by a hexagonal cone with crocket finial. Single windows flank either side of the chancel aisle, with one set back to clerestory level.

The western end adjoins Dunfermline Abbey church nave. A central entrance with a large window above features a two-leaf panelled timber door with a part-glazed inner porch. Flanking projecting stair vestibules occupy the first bay of the aisles of the abbey church nave, each with an entrance containing a two-leaf panelled timber door with glazed upper sections of wall set within the groin vault of the abbey church.

The transepts each have a central entrance set within a shallow gabled porch to the gable end, with flanking pinnacles comprising a hexagonal shaft on a square base surmounted by a hexagonal cone and crocket finial. A two-leaf panelled timber door with a part-glazed inner porch sits beneath. A large window above is topped with a cross finial to the gable. Pairs of flanking buttresses at right angles at the corners of the transepts, each surmounted by a pinnacle, provide structural support. Lower and upper windows light the outer bay of each side of the transept.

The central crossing tower features a single window to each side over the transepts and a pair of windows to each side over the chancel and nave. Pairs of buttresses at right angles at each corner of the tower support pinnacles. A balustrade of open stonework at the top bears the lettered words "KING ROBERT THE BRUCE" with crown finials to hexagonal dividing balusters. The roof is covered in grey slate throughout, and all windows are leaded fixed lights.

The base course runs around the exterior except to the sessions house, with a crenellated parapet above a moulded band course, except to the tower and western bay.

The interior features flat stellar rib vaulting with elaborate bosses and clustered shafts with moulded capitals to piers. Head bosses flank the arches. Galleries extend along the nave aisles and western end, with entrances to the stair vestibules at the western end of the aisles. Two-leaf panelled timber doors with Gothic ornamentation are fitted at ground and gallery level. Each staircase is stone half-turn with cast iron balustrade. The plastered walls are painted to imitate ashlar and decorated with a stencilled frieze below the clerestory by R Rowand Anderson, 1905. An entrance with a panelled timber door with Gothic ornamentation leads to the sessions house at the eastern end.

The east window depicts the Last Supper and Resurrection by Ballantine and Gardiner. South choir aisle windows are by Alexander Strachan (1933) and James Ballantine II (1914). The east and west windows of the south transept (Epiphany, 1900–01, and Ascension, 1880) are by G F Bodley. The south window of the south transept depicting St Margaret is by Douglas Strachan, circa 1935. The north transept window is by Gordon Webster, 1974. South aisle windows are by Ballantine, circa 1930, and William Wilson, 1968.

An organ built in 1882 by Forster and Andrews of Glasgow stands in the north choir aisle. It was rebuilt in 1911 and 1967. Pews and panelled timber dados are probably of early 20th-century date. The south choir aisle features timber panelling incorporating war memorials by James Shearer, 1952.

The tomb of Robert the Bruce in the choir contains an inscribed brass depiction of him set in a flat porphyry slab by Stewart McGlashan and Son, 1889. A Gothic pulpit and baldacchino situated above it are by R Rowand Anderson, 1905. A communion table also occupies this location. An eagle lectern, carved in 1931 by Thomas Good to a design by Matthew M Ochterlony and William Williamson, stands nearby. An elaborately carved former magistrates' pew of 1610 is set in the north wall of the north transept.

Monuments include a recumbent effigy of General Robert Bruce with a mourning woman by J H Foley (1863–68) and a recumbent effigy of Charles Bruce with an angel behind by Matthew Noble (1870), both in the south transept.