Wick Central Church, Dempster Street, Wick

Wick Central Church, built in 1853 with a spire added in 1862, is a Gothic-style, five-bay rectangular church featuring a tall single-stage tower on the south side. The church is constructed of regular coursed rubble with contrasting ashlar long and short dressings. The tower has stepped clasping angle buttresses and an entrance on the south face with a pointed head under an ogee hoodmould, along with a hoodmoulded blind cusped panel above. The tower includes tall louvred belfry openings with paired cusped heads and a hoodmould that continues around the tower and returns to the gable end of the church. It has a battlemented parapet with angle piers and a clock in the raised centre of each face. The facetted spire features two tiers of lucarnes on alternate faces and a finial. Each flanking gable has a door and a Y-traceried gallery window, along with small inner windows that are similarly traceried; the doors retain their original rib panelling. The side walls are adorned with tall Y-traceried windows. To the east is a session house, which is a single-storey gable end facing the street, featuring a gabled porch and similarly detailed windows, along with a low coped wall topped with fleurs-de-lis decorated cast-iron railings.