Church Of Our Lady And St Andrew, Market Street, Galashiels

The Church of Our Lady and St Andrew, located on Market Street in Galashiels, is a Gothic Revival church designed by William Wardell between 1856 and 1858, with extensions added by Goldie and Childe from 1866 to 1872. This 7-bay church features a monolithic basilican plan and is situated on a prominent corner site. The southern entrance front includes a blind arcade with five pointed arches, doors to the outer arches, a large pointed arched window with curvilinear tracery, and a small rose window at the gable head. The design is complemented by shouldered octagonal ashlar capped corner turrets.

The eastern elevation showcases tall pointed arched tracery clerestory windows and five low side chapels with copper roofs, each featuring three trefoils set between buttresses. There is a pitched 2-bay side aisle to the northwest. The church is constructed of coursed rubble with smooth sandstone margins, and it has a stepped base course along with a moulded string course at the first floor and shaped hoodmoulds.

Inside, the church boasts a well-preserved later 19th-century decorative scheme. The sanctuary walls are adorned with pointed arched arcading, and the High Altar and Lady Altar, designed by Earp of London in 1864, are elaborately painted. Notable features include a carved stone pulpit and font, equilateral arches in the side chapels with quadrant ribs, and a timber-lined collar-beamed roof supported by stone shafts that rise through the clerestory. The organ gallery is defined by a pointed arched arcade, leading to a vestibule with a pair of glazed timber inner porches at the south. The stained glass windows, including one from 1886 by Barnet & Son of Leith, commemorate Polish expatriates stationed in the area during the war.

Adjacent to the church is the Catholic presbytery, an earlier 19th-century two-storey, three-bay villa with a piended roof, directly linked to the confessional by a small corridor. It is built of coursed whinstone with raised sandstone quoins and margins, featuring 12-pane timber sash and case windows and a slate roof.

The property is enclosed by boundary walls and railings made of stepped sandstone-coped rubble walls with cast-iron railings and gates.