Gavinton Parish Church And Churchyard, Main Street, Gavinton

The church at Gavinton, built in 1872 by James Maitland Wardrop, stands on a raised site to the west of the village. It is a church with a square tower topped by a spire, alongside a nave and a vestry. The church is constructed from stugged ashlar stone with polished ashlar hoodmoulds and droved ashlar stop-chamfered margins on the south elevation, rubble on the north, and bull-faced sandstone with polished ashlar dressings for the tower and spire. A base course runs around the building, and battered buttresses are capped with a sawtooth coping.

The tower has a pointed-arch boarded door with a hoodmould on the outer right at ground and first stage. String courses divide each stage, and there’s a small window at the second stage. A pointed-arch window with a hoodmould and timber louvring sits at the third stage, and an eaves course features winged gargoyles at each corner. A tall, octagonal spire tapers upwards, featuring gabled, crocketted lucarnes and pinnacles. A string course runs halfway up the spire, and a weathercock sits at the apex.

The south elevation has seven bays, with a buttress centrally placed. Pointed-arch windows with hoodmoulds are set within two bays on each side of the buttress. To the outer left is a single-story vestry and entrance, featuring a timber-framed porch on a sandstone wall (now partly rendered) with a boarded, pointed-arch door.

The west elevation shows the gabled end of the single-story vestry, with a four-centre-arched window in the centre. A pointed-arch window is set back from the main west elevation on the side of the entrance. A lean-to addition is situated in the re-entrant angle between the vestry and the nave on the north side, with a four-centre-arched, boarded door facing west. A rose window is flanked by pointed-arch single windows at the west gabled end of the nave, with a wallhead coped stack to the north.

The north elevation has pointed-arch windows in the outer bays of the nave, with blank centre bays. A small window is present in the single-story lean-to addition on the outer right. A half-conical, octagonal engaged tower is set into the re-entrant angle of the nave and tower at the first stage, featuring a small pointed-arch opening. This arrangement is repeated at the second, third and spire levels, mirroring the south elevation.

The windows are flowing, curvilinear, and traceried, with leaded lights. The roof is covered in graded sandstone tiles, with sawtooth-coped skews and skewputts.

Inside, encaustic tiling covers the floor of the porch and the nave. The interior is simple, featuring sentences from the Bible painted above each window and around the rose window at the west end. Timber pews are arranged, rising toward the east end. A communion table and pulpit are centrally located at the west end, accompanied by a timber panelled reredos with pointed-arch engaged arcading, incorporating the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments. A timber font is also present, and an organ is situated at the first floor of the east end within a pointed-arch opening. Timber wall memorials honour Margaret Crombie Grant and Rev Robert Stormonth Darling, and a timber tablet records the ministers of Langton from 1574 to 1983.

The graveyard contains a variety of mainly 19th century sandstone gravestones. One stone, near the church, commemorates Charles Moir (died 1832) with a bas relief of a man in 18th century dress holding a book. A separate area is enclosed by cast-iron railings, containing gravestones of the Langton House family and their descendants.