St Mary's Episcopal Church, Musselburgh Road, Dalkeith

St Mary's Episcopal Church, Musselburgh Road, Dalkeith

St Mary's is an early English Gothic church designed by William Burn and David Bryce and completed in 1843. A chapel and transept were added in 1890 by Arthur W Blomfield. The church comprises a nave running east to west, a chancel to the east, and a chapel and transept to the northeast.

The exterior is built in stugged sandstone ashlar with moulded coping to the base course and a chamfered cill course. A string course runs below the parapet. The windows are 2-light lancets with moulded and hoodmoulded surrounds and staff-leaf capitals to nook-shafts. Gablet-capped set-off buttresses, including angle buttresses with small gargoyles, divide the elevations. The moulded gablet-coped skews are finished with grey slates; broad grey slates cover the south pitch of the nave and vestry, while leaded roof covers the chapel and north pitch of the chancel.

The west elevation features a 5-bay arcade at ground level with moulded pointed arches. The central bay is taller and gabled, containing a deeply chamfered pointed-arched doorway with nook-shafts. The doorway is fitted with 2-leaf boarded doors bearing elaborate scrolled ironwork by Potter of London. Paired cusped arches flank the doorway, blinded with polished ashlar. A wheel window sits above. A gabled bellcote with a cusped bipartite opening houses 2 small bells.

The south elevation comprises 5 bays with windows divided by buttresses. A gabled chancel projects from the centre with a lower eaves line; a stepped 3-light window sits to the right with a cross finial. A gabled vestry projects from the re-entrant angle on the south return, featuring a shouldered-arched doorway to the west and a geometrically traceried 2-light window to the south.

The north elevation has 4 bays. A gabled porch in the bay to the right of centre contains a moulded pointed-arched doorway to the north with nook-shafts and a stone slab roof topped by an elaborate stone finial. Windows in the remaining bays are divided by buttresses.

The chapel and transept form an L-plan, with the chapel to the east and the transept to the west. A porch sits in the re-entrant angle. The moulded course below the parapet is raised to follow gable lines and terminates in cross finials. The transept gables to the north and contains a 2-light window with a cinquefoiled oculus above; two single-light windows face west. The chapel gables to the east with a stepped 3-light window and cinquefoiled oculus above. Two stepped 3-light windows in hoodmoulded pointed-arched panels, divided by buttresses, face north. A porch with 3 single-light windows and a trefoil filigreed parapet faces north; a pointed-arched doorway on the gablet-coped east elevation is raised as a continuation of the buttress.

Internally, the nave features a timber double-hammerbeam roof supported on stone corbels. The chancel and chapel are ashlar rib-vaulted with decorative bosses and corbels. Pointed-arched surrounds have clustered colonnettes and stiff-leaf capitals.

A stone-corbelled pulpit by Burn and Bryce sits in the southeast re-entrant of the nave, displaying blind cusped arches, a quatrefoiled course, and extensive foliate carving to the corbel. It is entered from a vaulted stairway from the chancel. The chancel features a pointed chancel arch and a cusped blind arcaded reredos by Benjamin Ferrey. Two arches on the north side open to the chapel.

The organ gallery occupies the west end, featuring an 8-bay cusped arcade with a pierced trefoil filigreed parapet. Boarded doors occupy 2 central bays; the remaining bays are blind. The hydraulically blown organ by Hamilton and Miller of Edinburgh, installed in 1846, retains its gothic timber casing by Bryce.

A memorial chapel was added in 1913 by S Gambier Parry, comprising 2 bays to the south. The left bay contains a recumbent marble effigy of the 5th Duke of Buccleuch, begun by Edgar Boehm and finished by Alfred Gilbert in 1892. The right bay features a wrought-iron screen, with a wrought-iron gateway in a tall pointed arch leading to the transept. The chapel has a marble dado and pavement, with a crypt below.

Encaustic tiles decorated with Buccleuch heraldic shields cover the aisle, crossing, and chancel. An octagonal font with a marble-shafted base, designed by Benjamin Ferrey, stands in the nave. Oak choir stalls designed by William Butterfield and made by F and W Vigers in 1846 feature poppyhead pew ends. A brass eagle lectern and original iron light fittings complete the furnishings.

Stained glass includes the east chancel window and wheel window by Ward and Nixon of London, installed in 1845, and a window in the bay to the left of centre to the north. Paired lancets to the north in the transept, in memory of the 6th Duke of Buccleuch, were created by A K Nicolson in 1927. The chapel contains windows to the east and 2 to the north by James Powell and Sons, installed between 1913 and 1915.

A decorative cast-iron lamp standard stands to the west of the church.