Churchyard, Traquair Parish Church

Traquair Parish Church

Built in 1778 by John Haldane and Company to a design by John Winter, this church underwent substantial later modifications. The interior was recast in 1821, refurbished by WH Playfair in 1840, and remodelled internally in 1897 and 1914 when a vestry was added. The church has a rectangular plan with a projecting entrance to the east and a forestair to a former gallery. A lower burial aisle of unknown date adjoins to the north, forming a T-plan, with a vestry positioned in the re-entrant angle to the west. The building features a bellcote with weathervane, is harled with sandstone margins, and sits within a churchyard containing a later western wall with numerous tombs and stones of varying dates.

The south elevation facing the road displays tall paired windows at the centre with chamfered arrises, projecting imposts and keystones (the left window dated 1778). To the right is a bipartite window with a stone mullion, probably lighting an internal stair added in the 19th century, while to the left is a similar arch-topped window, circa 1914 and without a keystone, with insets on either side (a blind harled door below to the left).

The east entrance elevation features a central projecting entrance porch with a stone surround and timber door, adjoined by a dogleg forestair to the right with a plain wrought-iron handrail and balusters. This leads to an aligned entrance at gallery level with a two-leaf timber boarded door topped by a rectangular fanlight with margin lights and a stone surround, flanked by small square windows with stone margins.

The north elevation displays the T-plan arrangement with a single-storey, gable-ended Traquair (or Stuart) burial aisle projecting at the centre. This features a small barred arched window in the gablehead. Beneath is an aedicular monument to Lady Louisa Stuart (1875, commemorating her death at age 100) bearing the frieze inscription "WITHIN THIS AISLE LIE THE MORTAL REMAINS OF THE NOBLE AND ANCIENT HOUSE OF STUART, EARLS OF TRAQUAIR, REQUIESCANT IN PACE", with a stone cross at the gablehead. An entrance door with stone margins to the left return has an inset memorial tableau. A piended single-storey vestry occupies the right re-entrant angle with a door and window facing west. Small windows of late 18th-century date appear on the left of the main church body; a similar window on the right is now blind and partially concealed by the vestry.

The west gable elevation contains a pair of circa 1899 tall arch-topped windows with right-hung arched boarded timber exterior shutters and projecting sills. The gablehead is platformed and supports a simple square open bellcote of ashlar construction with an ogee roof, surmounted by a weathervane.

Throughout, windows display arch-topped multi-paned glazing. The gallery features paired four-pane lying casement windows, as do windows to the east of the south elevation. The vestry has a six-pane timber window with a two-pane upper sash and four-pane lower sash. The pitched slate roof has projecting verges, plain timber barge boarding, lead roll ridging, lead flashing and valleys. A squared timber louvred ventilator with a surmounting cross sits on the gallery roofline. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods are present throughout. A small harled wallhead stack stands to the northeast of the gallery with a plain can.

The interior is relatively plain with a high coved ceiling and a former gallery at the east end supported on cast-iron pillars, which was infilled in 1986 to create a meeting room accessed from the outside stair. Tongue and groove dado panelling appears throughout, including in the sloped window sills. Timber pews flank a central aisle. A carved timber pulpit, altar and font date to 1914, with an organ added later. Numerous memorial tablets dedicated to the Tennant family of Glen House are present. The west wall features an alto-rilievo angel figure by John Steell (1877–8) commemorating Janet Tennant (1850–66), a marble plaque for Emma, Lady Tennant (died 1895) with an inscription noting restoration by Sir Charles Tennant in September 1897, and an elaborate memorial in white, black and yellow marble for Edward Wyndam Tennant, executed by Allen G Wyon in 1920. The south wall contains a marble classical table for Francis Scott, tenant of Howford (died 1869), and a bronze plaque for Douglas Constable Oliphant, a Grenadier guard killed in 1916, by G. Maile & Son, London. The vestry is relatively plain.

The churchyard contains a varied collection of 17th to 19th-century graves, including a 1693 table tomb with Latin hexameter verse for Margret Borovman and James Bal/ichtone of Priesthom(e), who died in 1700; a 1691 arch-topped headstone for David Bell (tailor) with carved emblems of mortality including scissors and a flat iron; and a 1736 gravestone for Andrew Hay, gardener at Traquair House, bearing crossed spade and rake beneath a heart. Many small shoulder-topped headstones and obelisks survive. A large Tennant family burial plot to the north of the northeast wall contains small crosses and an arched classical gravestone for Edward Priaulx Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner. The boundary wall comprises whinstone with later ashlar sections.