Townhead And Blochairn Parish Church, 176 Royston Hill, Glasgow

This is a late 19th-century Gothic style church designed by Campbell Douglas and Stevenson between 1865 and 1866. Its prominent location atop Royston Hill adds to its dramatic presence. The church is constructed from stugged ashlar stone with polished dressings, featuring predominantly simple plate tracery, although some elements incorporate Y-tracery.

The main rectangular church building is buttressed, with the principal entrance located centrally within the west gable. Subsidiary entrances are provided to the tower and south aisle. The main portal is a pointed arch with nook shafts and stiff leaf capitals, leading to a roll-moulded, square-headed door. Above the portal is a recessed pointed arch with blind tracery, and above that, a four-light wheel window. The south elevation has six bays, with buttresses defining the aisle bays and pilaster strips marking the clerestory. Each aisle bay incorporates a bipartite window with a sharply pointed hoodmould and flanking round lights. A porch with a single light window is located on the extreme left, featuring an individual gabled roof flanked by pinnacles. The north elevation is similarly detailed, incorporating a tower to the west. The east gable contains two bipartite windows high in the wall, surmounted by a rose window. A single-story and attic vestry/church wardens' house is situated at the lower part of the gable, boasting bipartite windows and gabled dormers to the attic, topped by a tall coped stack. All elevations are capped with steeply pitched slated roofs.

The four-stage tower is buttressed at the angles. Plain lower stages give way to bipartite louvred openings with intricate tracery at the fourth stage. Above this, a low stage originally supported clock faces and pinnacles. From this rises a tall octagonal spire with lucarnes at its base.

The interior’s decorative scheme was developed by Cottier and Co, and it contains significant stained glass by Morris and Co. The church retains many original features, including a narthex featuring war memorials and remnants of stencilled dado decoration. It is galleried on three sides, with galleries supported by stockily proportioned cast-iron columns. These columns rise to lily capitals, supporting pointed arch arcading with portrait heads of Church figures in the spandrels. The galleries are also supported from solid cast-iron beams with elaborately panelled fronts incorporating a “wheel window” motif. A raised dais is present, with a dado screen and a fine original pulpit with stair access and panelled front. A panelled screen is located behind the pulpit, concealing the organ pipes above. The Willis organ retains elaborate stencil work inside the organ loft. High-quality stained glass by Morris and Co., designed by Burne-Jones, Madox Brown, and William Morris, adorns the interior. The hammerbeam roof rises from corbels at the arcade to a plain plastered ceiling.