Bridge Street Parish Church, Bridge Street, Wick

Bridge Street Church is a rectangular-plan former Free Church, now in use as a shop, designed in the Late Gothic style by William Johnston Gray of Berwick and built between 1862 and 1864. The building forms part of a terrace at the southwestern end of Bridge Street in Wick, on the northern side of the Bridge of Wick.

The southeast front elevation is built in ashlar stone with moulded stonework to the openings and is three bays wide. The central section features a buttressed gabled front with a large five-light stone mullioned and transomed perpendicular window with lattice glazing and stylised tracery. Above this window is a cusped roundel with eight-pointed tracery. The gable has a crenellated parapet and a carved finial on the apex. To the right is a three-stage tower with angled buttresses and topped by an octagonal spire with carved bands and a cross finial. The tower has a carved and moulded parapet with a single opening in the second and third stages. The bay to the left of centre has a crenellated parapet. Both flanking bays have pointed arched entrances with hoodmoulding. The door in the right bay has two-leaf timber doors. Plain cast iron railings section off the basement level, which is accessed via stone steps. Cast iron rainwater goods are positioned behind stonework on the front elevation.

The northwest rear elevation is plainer and largely symmetrical, built in squared and tooled rubble with ashlar long and short window margins. It has two large mullioned and transomed arched windows flanked by smaller Y-tracery windows with leaded glass. Above the two large windows is a quatrefoil window. A chimney stack rises at the apex of the gable. The basement openings are shallow arched. Many windows throughout have Y-tracery and leaded glass, with some stained glass present.

The interior, inspected in 2018, has been fitted out as a retail outlet with the organ and pews removed. Substantial 19th century fixtures and fittings remain, including timber wainscoting throughout, moulded columns, and a semi-circular gallery accessed by two curved staircases in the vestibule areas with moulded banisters and handrails. Brass lighting fittings with foliate detailing and painted friezes below the roof are present. The choir and pulpit area is intact with stairs leading up to where the communion table would have been, enclosed with timber Gothic-style altar rails with a gilded decorative balustrade.

The roof is supported by hammerbeam timber trusses with pierced floral spandrels and gilded knops below on timber corbels. The clerestory windows are pairs of arched stained glass windows with rose motifs and lattice decoration. Two large three-light arched windows in the northwest elevation are present, one with a central stained glass panel dedicated to the Malaya and Burma campaign. Four smaller two-light arched windows flank these, one wholly in stained glass, all with Y-tracery. A smaller circular stained glass quatrefoil window sits above.

The basement areas are in use as a residential flat, a gym, and storage areas. These rooms retain wainscoting and ornate moulded vents, with flagstone floors in the storage areas. The attic was not seen.