Erskine United Free Church, Kinghorn Road, Burntisland

Erskine United Free Church, Kinghorn Road, Burntisland

This Gothic church was designed by John Bennie Wilson and completed in 1903. It features a distinctive entrance tower and a 3-bay nave with side aisles. The building is constructed in rock-faced rubble with polished ashlar dressings, while the tower is built in dressed ashlar. The design incorporates 2-stage saw-tooth coped buttresses, a 2-stage chamfered plinth, and a moulded string course with a continuous hoodmould. An architraved cornice runs across the building. The reticulated traceried south window includes hoodmoulds with foliate label stops, chamfered reveals and stone mullions. Doors are part-glazed with 2-leaf panelled design.

The south elevation presents a 2-stage gable end with 3 bipartite cusped windows and flanking buttresses. A large 5-light window occupies the second stage, flanked by coped batter of buttresses to impost height. Angled skew blocks sit at the wallhead with a Celtic cross finial at the gablehead.

The tower is a 4-stage structure with a clasping polygonal tower to the southwest corner. A flight of 10 steps with flanking 2-stage walls leads to the main door set within a heavily moulded pointed-arch frame. A cusped niche in the tympanum sits below a hoodmould with label stop to the right, and a continuous hoodmould extends to the left, encompassing the polygonal tower. A buttress stands to the right with a narrow light to the left on the polygonal angle stair tower, and a further narrow cusped light on the west face. A saw-tooth coped batter with decorative corbel table rises above the door, giving way to the second stage with a narrow cusped light near the top. The west face displays a 2-light plate traceried window, a narrow light in the stair tower, and a narrow cusped light near the top. A narrow cusped light on the north face sits over the slope of the nave roof. The third stage has a narrow light to the left on the stair tower above a string course, a clock with Roman numerals at the centre, and another narrow light to the stair tower. A batter rises to the fourth stage belfry, which features traceried louvred openings on each face, a moulded string course encompassing the stair tower with water spouts, and a blind arcade to the parapet with corner piers and bird-finalled roof. An open arcade at the southwest leads to a finalled crocketed conically-roofed caphouse.

The east elevation shows a 2-bay nave in an advanced face at the centre and right, with 4 high cusped bipartite windows at ground floor and a panelled door below a sloping roof adjoining a small projecting choir and hall. A saw-tooth coped battered buttress stands to the left, with a batter rising from a central and outer right pier to a 4-light panel traceried window below a continuous hoodmould and architraved cornice. Two slated louvred vents sit high on the roof pitch. A re-entrant to the left contains a low battered buttress with 4 steps leading to a gabled part-glazed panelled door in a moulded pointed-arch doorcase with hoodmould and label stops. A cusped bipartite window appears on the return to the left, with an off-line moulded string course above.

The west elevation displays a 2-bay nave with the tower in a re-entrant to the right. Four cusped bipartite windows stand to the left below 2 panel traceried windows, with 2 slated louvred vents high on the roof pitch. A low saw-tooth coped battered buttress sits at the outer left with a part-glazed 2-leaf door in a moulded depressed-arch doorcase below a sloping roof adjoining a small projecting choir.

The north elevation features tiered gables of the chancel and nave, each with Celtic cross finials. A pointed arch of a blinded window in the chancel is just visible over the pitched roof of the hall.

Stained glass fills the south window; all other windows are glazed with margined, square-pattern coloured leaded lights. Small grey slates with red ridge-tiles cover the roof. Ashlar coped skews with mitre and flat skewputts, cast-iron downpipes and decorative rainwater hoppers complete the exterior.

The interior is galleried. A leaded-light arcaded screen separates the narthex, while a stone stair with decorative cast-iron balusters and timber handrail ascends to the gallery in the tower. A screen wall to the nave displays memorial tablets. The wide nave is flanked by narrow aisles, with pointed arches to the east, west and north—the north arch contains an organ in a converted choir. Polished ashlar piers with octagonal bases and round shafts support full-height moulded arches springing from foliate capitals and corbels that carry a timber gallery to the south, east and west. Timber bench pews occupy the ground floor, while tiered pews with panelled and fretwork fronts furnish the galleries. An open timbered roof features corbelled hammerbeams and a decorated centre beam. Part-glazed timber doors flank the platform at the west, where the Communion Table and elders' seating sit. Two short flights of steps with finalled newel-posts flank a canted pulpit with blind timber arcading at the centre. A blind timber arcade with sounding-board, a 5-part organ with flanking timber screens, and a blinded north window are all framed within a stone archway.

The south window comprises 5 lights designed by N K Pink of The Abbey Studio in 1921. It illustrates the theme The Light of The World, including scenes of Moses guided by the Light, Paul's conversion, Jesus healing the blind, and the Star in the East.

Clock machinery occupies the southwest tower, accompanied by an original instruction sheet for "Winding, Regulating and Oiling Clock."

The hall is a single-storey session room and vestry in a gabled L-plan, with a bird-finalled bellcast-roofed square lantern. Rock-faced rubble appears on the west, with stucco elsewhere. Ashlar quoins, dressings, skews and skewputts finish the design. Cusped bipartite windows flank a low saw-tooth-coped battered buttress on the advanced gable to the west. Two bipartite windows appear on the return to the left, and a bipartite window sits on the recessed face also to the left.

The boundary comprises coped, bull-faced rubble walls and square gatepiers with blind, cusped tripartite arcading below triangular cope. Decorative cast-iron arch dated '1738-1988' and decorative cast-iron gates occupy the south. Stepped and coped boundary walls with oblong gatepiers and decorative cast-iron gate stand to the west. Semicircular coped rubble boundary walls run along the east and rubble boundary walls along the north.