South United Free Church, Comrie Street, Crieff

South United Free Church, Comrie Street, Crieff

This is a Scots gothic church designed by J J Stevenson and built in 1882, with construction supervised by Robert Ewan of Glasgow. Minor alterations were made by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1929. The church sits on steeply falling ground to the southwest. A separate Mission Hall was constructed in 1876.

The main church comprises a 4-bay nave with side aisles, clerestory and basement, topped by a 3-stage tower. It is built in red bull-faced ashlar in uneven courses with ashlar dressings, string and eaves courses. The building is decorated with single, 2- and 4-stage sawtooth-coped buttresses and hoodmoulds. Windows are traceried with quatrefoil roundels, and openings are pointed-arched, shoulder-arched or square-headed, featuring chamfered reveals and stone mullions throughout.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is symmetrical, presenting a broad gabled 3-stage design with flanking 2-stage aisle bays. The centre bay contains a deeply-moulded doorway with a 2-leaf timber door and glazed fanlight, a single light to the left, and a bipartite window high up to the right. Above are 3 narrow lights at the 2nd stage and 3 traceried double lancets at the 3rd stage, with a traceried roundel in the gablehead. Flanking full-height buttresses give way to outer bays, each with a bipartite window at the 1st stage (that to the left widely-spaced), a small bipartite window at the 2nd stage, and a deep blocking course above with a quatrefoil in a square panel. A further single-stage buttress stands to the outer right.

The southeast elevation, facing Coldwells Road, features a gabled porch to the outer left with a deeply-moulded doorcase incorporating flanking colonettes and a blind-arcade within the tympanum. A 2-leaf timber door opens beneath, with a roundel in the gablehead and a buttress to the right. The 4-bay nave aisle extends to the right, with a cill course giving way to 4-light windows and a blocking course with glazed quatrefoils above. Ten Y-traceried windows light the clerestory above. The tower projects at the outer right.

The east tower comprises four stages. At the 1st stage on the southeast face is a moulded doorway with an adjacent narrow light to the left; a low mission hall abuts at the outer right. The 2nd stage has a bipartite window set into a pointed-arch frame on both the southeast and northeast faces, with a stepped-in course above abutting the cill of a single lancet on the same two faces. A further stepped-in course higher up the 2nd stage contains a small square opening on each face. At the 3rd stage, a cill course gives way to a large louvered traceried opening on each face. The outer angles are corbelled to squat bartizans and a battlemented parapet with drain spouts. Above this rises a set-back octagonal spire with a delicate fleche to alternate faces, surmounted by a ball finial and a cast-iron weathervane with cockerel.

The northwest elevation matches the southeast elevation but features a 3-stage stair tower to the outer right with detailing similar to the porch.

The northeast elevation is gabled, displaying a tall heavily-mullioned tripartite window divided into a 4-light traceried window with a cinquefoil at the apex and a small bipartite window in the gablehead with a Celtic Cross finial. The mission hall stands at ground level and the tower at the left.

The roofing employs green slates with ashlar-coped skews and flat skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes feature decorative rainwater hoppers. Multi-pane leaded glazing with coloured margins and small coloured details appears in the clerestory, southwest and northeast elevations, with stained glass to bay 3 of the southeast nave and the vestibule.

The interior is galleried. Leaded-light screens and doors lead to the vestibule, from which stone stairs with cast-iron balusters ascend to the gallery. The wide nave retains fixed timber pew fronts at the chancel end. An arcade of circular cast-iron piers with moulded capitals supports segmental arches, beneath panelled timber gallery fronts. An organ occupies the southwest corner, and an open-timbered ceiling spans the space. Steps rise to the chancel with an altar arch.

Stained glass windows include a memorial window of 1888 in the south gable vestibule depicting a man carrying a lamp, dedicated to Dr Alexander Thom. A memorial window to G Strathairn with scenes from Pilgrim's Progress, created by Douglas Strachan in 1926, also graces the vestibule. Further figurative lights appear in the vestibule and a 4-light window to the southeast nave.

The Mission Hall is a low rectangular-plan structure built of squared rubble block, abutting the church at the northeast. A truncated gable faces the southeast with relief-carved stone dated 1876, positioned above a part-blocked raised centre hoodmoulded window. It features a circular ironwork ridge ventilator, rooflights and gablehead stacks. A further smaller jerkinheaded rectangular block, probably of later date, stands to the northeast with overhanging eaves, a tripartite window to the southeast and 2 single windows to the northeast, accompanied by 2 diminutive ironwork ridge ventilators and 2 rooflights. Both buildings are linked at the southeast (Coldwells Road) by a low screen wall with a timber door to its centre, 2 single lights to the left and a tripartite window to the right, all below a blocking course.

The boundary is defined by stepped ashlar-coped walls with inset decorative ironwork railings and flat-coped square-section ashlar gatepiers with ironwork gates to the southeast.