Church Hall, Barony Parish Church, Castle Street, Glasgow

Barony Parish Church Hall, Castle Street, Glasgow

A substantial Gothic church complex designed by the architectural practice Burnet Son and Campbell (Sir John James Burnet and John Archibald Campbell) and built between 1886 and 1890. The church was later restored and extended with additions by David Leslie of Walter Underwood and Partners, followed by the David Leslie Partnership, between 1986 and 1995. The complex comprises a T-plan Gothic church with a former session house and adjoining hall.

The main church building is constructed of red snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings, featuring a base course and cornice throughout. The architectural detailing is consistently Gothic Revival: moulded pointed-arch archivolts frame the entrance doorways, whilst windows are predominantly lancets with chamfered moulded openings and hoodmoulds. Lean-to side aisles feature paired lancet windows. Angle buttresses are surmounted by plain gablets, and decorative cross apex finials crown the gables.

The south elevation (facing Rotten Row) is the principal front. At the centre is a pointed arch doorway with chamfered surround, fitted with boarded doors bearing decorative wrought-iron furniture. This is flanked by flying buttresses, each containing a trefoil-headed niche and small lancet windows. Above, a raked cill course leads to three soaring lancet windows containing stained glass, with a vesica motif at the gable apex.

The west elevation presents a buttressed six-bay nave. To the right is a taller lean-to stairtower bay with a two-leaf door beneath a row of lancets. To the left is a four-bay lower chapel with lancet clerestorey windows lighting a recessed choir.

The north elevation shows three lancets to the choir gable, with a stair housed in the north-west buttress. A corbelled parapet wallhead supports a recessed gablehead behind.

The east elevation comprises a buttressed four-bay nave with a taller lean-to stairtower bay to the left containing a two-leaf door below lancet windows. A gabled transept projects to the right, with lancets flanking a central buttress and a vesica in the apex. A porch is set within the south-east re-entrant angle, featuring a wide doorway with elaborate moulded archivolt. Above the door is a triple-light gable window with the central lancet taller, set back from the parapet wallhead. A small stair turret stands to the left; lights to the right return feature engaged columnettes to the mullions.

The Session House projects to the right of the transept in a canted bay with angle buttresses. Its windows are tripartite lancets with the central lancet taller and deep raked cills, topped by a corbelled parapet.

The interior demonstrates outstanding early English Gothic detailing. The plan comprises centre and side passage aisles with a tripartite chancel. A gallery spans the entrance vestibule, flanked by staircases, with an organ loft located in the transept. The chancel is flanked by chapels. Pointed arch arcaded aisles feature shafts attached by ring brackets to each bay. The chancel arch is soaring and has keel-shaped cluster columns with foliate capitals, flanked by lower and narrower pointed arches to the flanking chapels. A tripartite ashlar reredos, designed by J J Burnet in 1900 and sculpted by William Vicars, stands at the east end. The pulpit is a fine ashlar example with balustrade and marble coping. The choir stalls are of fine woodwork with angel finials. An open timber roof to the nave is decorated with fleur de lys motifs and coats of arms at the base, whilst the choir is covered by a barrel vault. The floor is laid with parquet, with decorative tiling at the chancel. The doors feature tooled leather coverings. The former Session House, now the Sir Patrick Thomas Reading Room, contains wall stalls divided from the chapel by a timber and glazed screen beneath a shaped timber ceiling.

Stained glass windows include those in the chancel by Herbert Hendrice (1950) and windows in the transept and gallery by Douglas Hamilton (1953). All glazing comprises square-pane leaded bars arranged in looped patterns within the lancet heads, with some frosted glass to remaining windows.

The former church hall and vestry form a U-plan structure adjoining the church at the north-east. This building accommodates committee rooms and a caretaker's flat. The north elevation (facing Macleod Street) is single storey across eight bays, with a two-storey and attic entrance bay to the right. A wide pointed arch entrance opens to a recessed porch, with two-leaf doors to both left and right of the porch and a window at the centre. Above the entrance is a stone-mullioned bipartite window with a relieving arch and gabled dormerhead. The caretaker's flat, set at right angles to the south, is two storeys tall with openings positioned close to the swept eaves at the centre. Crowstepped gables of unequal size face north and south.

The west elevation (facing Castle Street) features a slightly advanced gable with three bays to the left and an entrance porch in a shallow re-entrant angle. The gable contains triple lancet lights with the central lancet taller and trefoil-headed. To the left section are rectangular tripartite windows. A later octagonal-plan infill structure, positioned between the former church and hall, has a glazed roof.

Within the hall block, a large hall occupies the north-east section with a lean-to aisle to the south supported on timber columns. The open timber roof features four main arched trusses and perpendicular detailing to the timber piers flanking a stage at the west end. A small hall is located to the east.

The exterior features steeply pitched roofs covered in grey slates. A tall, elaborately pinnacled French fleche surmounts the crossing.

The church is fitted with timber sash and case windows to the caretaker's flat.

A War Memorial, designed by Peter MacGregor Chalmers in 1921, stands to the south-east of the church within railings. It comprises a cream sandstone free-standing cross of sacrifice, 18 feet high, with a bronze sword attached to the cross at the top of the slender shaft.

The retaining wall, railings and piers flanking Rotten Row and Castle Street are of wrought iron, simply detailed. At the Castle Street gateway stands a gablet pier in red sandstone. At the south-east corner is a large drum pier of much-weathered red sandstone, topped with a convex cone ashlar cap and bearing a carved dedication tablet dated 1889.