Penicuik Free Church, Peebles Road, Penicuik

Penicuik Free Church, Peebles Road, Penicuik

Designed by F T Pilkington and built between 1862 and 1863, this is a striking Rogue Gothic church of truncated square plan with a square-plan rising to an octagonal tower at the north-east. It features two canted side apses to the north and south. The building is constructed from stugged coursed ashlar sandstone with bull-faced dressings polished to the margins, and is roofed with steeply-pitched slated surfaces. The principal architectural language employs pointed arch openings, and gables are surmounted by decorative finials.

The tower forms a dominant element on the east elevation. It is a battered and buttressed square-plan structure rising through three stages, becoming octagonal at belfry level. A porch at the first stage of the east elevation features cusped pointed arches supported on squat columns with stiff-leaf capitals and decorative brackets. The main doorway is a pointed-arched, shouldered opening with a blind tympanum, fitted with a two-leaf diagonally-boarded timber door. String courses and band courses divide the stages, with the belfry level displaying unfinished aedicules and louvered pointed-arch openings containing trefoils. Clock faces surmounted by carved angels occupy the north, east and south facets. The tower is enriched with corbelled engaged columns featuring stiff-leaf capitals, modillions, and a deep foliate eaves cornice.

The principal east elevation consists of an entrance gable with the tower recessed to the right. A narthex centred at ground level comprises a four-arch arcade with clustered columns on bull-faced plinths, each bearing differing foliate capitals. Above this sit three quatrefoil windows, followed by four pointed-arch cusped lancet windows. A rose window in the gable head is surrounded by quatrefoils and cinquefoils. Bull-faced voussoirs hug the eaves.

The north elevation contains a canted apse to the right, featuring gabletted bipartite pilastered cusped pointed-arch windows on a moulded cill course, with cinquefoil windows in the arch-heads surmounted by decorative finials. A pair of pointed-arch cusped openings at the centre is carried on squat columns, with a diagonally-boarded timber door in the opening to the right. The tower adjoins to the left.

The west elevation contains an apse with a jerkin-headed gable and a central multifoil window set in an arch on a single diminutive column, incorporating a six-pointed star and foliate decoration.

The south elevation features a canted apse to the left with gabletted bipartite columner-mullioned cusped pointed-arch windows on a moulded cill course, with cinquefoil windows in the arch-heads surmounted by decorative trefoil finials. A shouldered segmental-arched doorpiece to the right is set on decorative colonette brackets. A steep polygonal-roofed battered session house adjoins to the outer left, complete with a moulded cornice at the impost level of windows, a door to the right, and cusped windows to the remaining facets.

The interior is dominated by an open timber roof with king posts and wrought-iron ties. The gallery front is chevron-panelled and supported by barley-sugar timber columns. An organ built by Hamilton of Edinburgh in 1901 features tooled brass quatrefoil plaques and painted pipes. The timber pulpit, with scallop-carved arrises and an inscribed brass plaque, was built by John Graster and the Governor and Boys of the Wellington Reformatory and presented to the church in 1865. A later timber communion table flanked by columns with carved foliate decoration and polished bosses completes the furnishings. The interior features an open pyramidal timber roof, vertically-boarded timber panelling to a timber dado, tooled sandstone foliate brackets, and raked timber pews. Windows throughout feature a variety of leaded and stained glass.

The roof is of graded grey slate with lead ridges and some snow boards. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted, and sawtooth skews finish the roof edges. A low bull-faced boundary wall runs along the street frontage, coped with railings now removed. Tall gatepiers with decorative gabletted caps and finials flank the entrance.