East Kirk, Dalkeith

St Nicholas Buccleuch is a 15th-century Late Gothic church that was partly remodelled during restoration by David Bryce between 1851 and 1854. The steeple was rebuilt in 1888. The church is cruciform in plan with side aisles, north and south transepts, a chancel to the east and steeple to the west. There is a roofless choir to the east with a former sacristy projecting from its north wall (designated separately as Scheduled Monument SM1188).

The church is constructed of stugged squared and snecked ashlar with a coped base course. It has pointed-arched windows with a variety of curvilinear tracery, largely 3-light with deeply and double chamfered margins and cills. A dogtooth cavetto course appears above the windows on the south elevation. The building has coped set-off buttresses and gablet-coped skews. The roof is grey slate with stone ridging, and includes some original rainwater goods with rainwater heads dated 1851.

The steeple, built in 1888 in three stages, is advanced slightly from the side aisles and has diagonal angle buttresses to the third stage. It features a coped base course and courses between stages, with hoodmoulded 2-light windows. A pointed-arched moulded doorway appears on the west face with a window above the door on the second stage. Further windows with clocks below are positioned on each face of the third stage. A canted stair tower projects above the aisle roof to the right of the south face, with a slit and stone slab half-piend roof featuring a cusped and corbelled eaves course. The steeple is topped by a broached ashlar spire with 2-light geometric-traceried gabled lucarnes on alternate faces and slit lucarnes above, crowned by a weathervane.

The south aisle has 3 bays with a porch in the left bay. Windows occupy the remaining bays, divided by buttresses. A window appears to the right and 2 lancets to the left on the west return. The porch is gabled with a chamfered pointed-arched doorway on the south side and a carved corbel above. Diagonal buttresses with block pinnacles flank the porch. It has a stone slab roof and dogtooth eaves course. Internally, there is a pointed vault with surface ribs, probably medieval, and a hanging lantern.

The north aisle comprises 4 bays with a vestry to the west. Windows appear in 3 bays to the left, divided by buttresses, and a 2-light window to the right. A hoodmoulded 2-light window is positioned on the west return.

The transepts have aisles adjoining the west return elevations. Hoodmoulded windows appear on the north and south sides, with another window on the east return of the south transept. The transepts have sawtooth skews and gableted skewputts.

The chancel has windows on the north and south sides in advanced bays. A gableted buttress with a canopied niche and carved pinnacle appears on the right-hand side of the south elevation.

The interior has painted rubble and plaster walls and timber dadoes. Timber roofs vault the nave with coombed aisle roofs. A 3-bay nave features moulded pointed arches on octagonal ashlar piers with moulded plaster capitals, hoodmoulds and carved head label stops to the arches. Transepts open off the east bays. A pointed arch separates the aisles from the transepts.

In the chancel, the north and south windows are recessed in narrow pointed-arched panels. A timber communion table and brass table-top lectern date from 1908. A stone pulpit (the King George V Memorial Pulpit) and lectern date from 1936. A stone font (Second World War Memorial) is dated 1948. The organ, by Foster and Andrews of Hull, dates to 1884.

A full-height pointed arch appears on the west wall of the nave, and a gallery with a rib-vaulted roof in the first stage of the tower dates from 1882. A panelled screen with cusped glazing and 2-leaf doors at ground floor level dates from 1861. A pointed-arched piscina is located in its original masonry panel to the right on the east wall of the north aisle.

The Calderwood Memorial is on the west wall of the south aisle, probably relocated during the 1851 restoration work. This late 17th-century Renaissance-style stone wall monument to William Calderwood, minister of the church from 1659 to 1680, features a swan neck pediment, dentilled cornice, Corinthian nook-shafts and elaborate carving, including emblems of mortality.

The banner of the Dalkeith Hammermen's Society, dated 1665, is located on the west wall of the north aisle. A timber internal porch is approached from the south porch, to the right of the aisle wall. A vestibule in the tower has a vestry to the north and an entrance to the stair tower to the south.

The chancel window depicts the Good Shepherd and St Nicholas, in memory of Rev W M Dunnett (died 1957). A War Memorial window in the east wall of the south transept was created by Mr Ballantyne in 1921. Geometric stained glass appears in the gallery window to the west. Coloured glass margins surround the remaining diamond-paned windows.

The graveyard is bounded by ashlar coped rubble walls. There are 4 coped set-off buttresses on the north wall in the garden of No. 127 High Street (see separate listing). Ashlar piers with cornice and a blocking course face the High Street. The graveyard has iron gates and contains a number of 18th and 19th-century monuments, including a substantial triumphal pedimented wall monument dated 1722.

A small gabled rectangular-plan watch-house is incorporated into the boundary wall to the west of the gates on the High Street. It is built of squared and coursed rubble with a stone slab roof. The door is to the east with a window on the north side. A coped gablehead stack appears on the west side.