Riverside Methodist Church, Boat Brae, Rattray

Riverside Methodist Church, Boat Brae, Rattray

This cruciform-plan church was designed by David Smart of Perth and built in 1887. It is constructed in the mid-Decorated gothic style with a distinctive 3-stage tower and broached stone spire.

The exterior is built in red bull-faced rubble with ashlar dressings. A base course and eaves corbel course run around the building, with dividing courses marking the tower. The design features corbels and 2-stage saw-tooth coped clasping buttresses. Windows throughout are traceried with stone mullions, chamfered reveals and raked cills.

The south-east elevation facing Boat Brae presents a stone-cross finialled gabled face dominated by a large hoodmoulded 4-light traceried memorial window protected by a screen. A small louvered triangular opening sits in the gablehead, with flanking buttresses either side.

The south entrance tower forms the most prominent feature. At the first stage sits a deeply-moulded doorcase with flanking engaged colonettes, hoodmould and a 2-leaf boarded timber door with decorative ironwork hinges. Flanking angle buttresses frame this entry. A small shoulder-arched window appears to the south-west, while a small 2-stage polygonal-roofed stair tower with three vertically-aligned windows breaks into the second stage at the left angle. The second stage carries a 2-light traceried window at the south-east and a blind trefoil to the centre of the south-west face. The third stage, slightly reduced, has 2-light traceried windows at each face and is crowned by a weathervane-finialled broach spire with louvered and finialled stone lucarnes on each principal face.

The south-west elevation along Riverside Road features a gabled bay to the left of centre with a 3-light traceried window above a widely-spaced tripartite, each light appearing shoulder-arched. A buttress marks the left angle, and a trefoil-headed lancet sits on a narrow set-back face to the left. A hall adjoins at the outer left. The dominant tower rises in a re-entrant angle to the right, with a 2-light traceried window on the set-back face at outer right.

The north-east elevation has a gable to the right of centre with a blind quatrefoil on the return to the left. Two 2-light traceried windows with a dividing buttress sit set-back to the left, and a trefoil-headed lancet occupies a narrow set-back bay at outer right.

The north-west elevation shows a louvered triangular opening in the gablehead above a projecting hall.

All windows feature diamond-pattern leaded and margined multi-pane glazing. The roof is covered in grey slates with ashlar-coped skews with mitred skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers drain the eaves, and diminutive louvered triangular roof ventilators pierce the roof.

The interior remains substantially unaltered, featuring fixed timber pews, boarded timber dadoes and some decorative plasterwork. A notable hammerbeam roof spans the nave. A raised chancel area contains a carved pulpit, communion table and a pipe organ built by Albert Keates of Sheffield, with tuning work by H Hilsdon Ltd of Glasgow.

The principal window is the War Memorial window to the Labour Corps, designed by Robert Anning Bell RA of Glasgow in 1922 and executed by John and William Guthrie. It depicts St George, St Paul, Patriarch Job and General Gordon beneath the words 'COURAGE', 'ENDURANCE', 'FORTITUDE' and 'SELF SACRIFICE', surmounted by angels. A dedication reads 'To the Glory of God and in memory of the officers, non-commissioned officers and men of His Majesty's forces who gave their lives while serving in the Labour Corps in the Great War 1914-1918'. Panels show soldiers struggling through 'sun', 'frost', 'rain' and 'tempest' with the inscription 'AND THEIR NAME LIVETH TO ALL GENERATIONS'. The tracery contains a Union Jack, shield and badge of the Labour Corps, symbols of suffering and endurance, and a top roundel with emblems of Christ's passion.

A smaller tripartite window depicts a dove, 'FAITH' and a lamb in memory of David Caldicott Ingram, died 26th June 1897. A brass plaque records 'These windows were erected by members of the Church on 7th June, 1900'.

The Church Hall is a single-storey, L-plan gabled structure adjoining to the south-west. It features square-headed tripartite and bipartite windows with louvered triangular openings in gableheads. The north-west gable carries two bipartites and a broad shouldered gablehead stack, with a shoulder-arched doorway with boarded timber door on the return to the right allowing disabled access. A further gable to the north-east has timber and bipartite windows, with a slightly set-back lower piended bay in re-entrant angle at outer right. Diamond-pattern leaded glazing, grey slates and sawtooth-coped, chamfered ashlar stack match the main church. Ashlar-coped skews with moulded skewputts complete the detailing.

Low saddleback-coped rubble boundary walls with inset decorative cast-iron railings and hoopwork gates define the site frontage, with semicircular-coped rubble walls elsewhere.