Cowcaddens Free Church And Hall, 30, 32, 34 Mcphater Street, Glasgow

Cowcaddens Free Church and Hall, located at 30, 32, and 34 McPhater Street in Glasgow, was designed by Campbell Douglas and Sellars in 1872. It was refurbished and converted into a centre for the study and teaching of the art of piping between 1993 and 1996 by McGurn, Logan, Duncan, and Opfer. The building features an Italianate style with a temple-like frontage, constructed from cream ashlar sandstone on the front and west side, and on the east side above the clerestorey. It includes a base course, cill courses, cornices, and parapets at the aisles.

The southeast elevation is two storeys high with an advanced and pedimented design. The ground floor serves as a plinth with channelled pilaster quoins and a tall central pedimented doorpiece featuring deep-set two-leaf panelled doors. Above this, there are three bays that include a shallow portico supported by two inner columns flanked by paired pilasters, with tall corniced and pilastered windows behind. The outer bays are slightly recessed; the left bay contains the base of the campanile, each with a pedimented and pilastered doorway and panelled doors, and a Greek Key frieze above the lintels. The eastern door bay is adjoined to the Hall.

The tower is a squat three-stage campanile located at the southwest corner, featuring an architraved window on the ground floor to the west side, and a doorway to the south. Below the round-arched louvred openings, there are paired openings with an impost course, and the deep consoled eaves lead to a Roman tiled piend roof.

On the west elevation, the tower is positioned to the outer right, with five bays to the aisle and a set-back clerestorey. There are three segmentally pedimented and pilastered windows on the ground floor, along with two regularly pedimented windows. The clerestorey features pier mullioned tripartite windows, and there is a low opening to the crypt at the northern end, which is on falling ground.

The east elevation is adjoined at the southern end by the Hall, which is detailed similarly to the west. The Hall has a square plan, is three storeys high with a basement, and consists of three bays. Originally, it may have included some residential accommodation. The front is made of cream sandstone ashlar, with moulded cill courses at the first and second floors, and a cornice on the southern front. The basement has small-paned windows, while the centre bay on each floor features single windows, with stone mullioned bipartite windows flanking them, all of which are architraved. A stair bay projects at the rear to the northwest, added later and constructed with brick on the north and west sides, featuring a doorway at the ground level to the east. The building has wallhead stacks, one of which is truncated, and a slate piend roof with remnants of a louvred ventilator at the apex.