Wilton Church, Hawick

John Thomas Emmett, 1860-2; enlarged 1908-10, James Pearson Alison. T-plan, Early Decorated-style, gabled parish church oriented SE-NW, with 4-stage, pyramidal-roofed tower at S corner, lean-to side aisled, transepts, chancel, and vestry in W corner. Tooled yellow sandstone ashlar with polished margins (see NOTES). Base course; cill courses. Sawtooth-capped, battered buttresses, gabletted to transepts. Tripartite, bar-traceried windows to entrance gable, chancel and transepts; predominantly Y-traceried windows elsewhere; head-stopped hoodmoulds to principal windows and to all openings on entrance elevation and tower. Shouldered margins to doors and windows of vestry and offices.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: 3-bay, gabled SE (entrance) elevation: 4 stone steps to central, 2-leaf, timber-panelled door with wrought-iron strap hinges; elaborately traceried window above and to right, with colonnette mullions. Tower recessed to left: blind 1st and 3rd stages, window to 2nd and 4th stages, and machicolated parapet. SW (Dickson Street) elevation with tower to outer right; 3-bay aisle; gabled transept and piend-roofed offices to outer left. Projecting, gabled chancel to centre of 5-bay NW elevation with 2 small, bipartite, stop-chamfered basement windows and large, traceried window above; ridge-roofed bays to left and right; low, flat-roofed, advanced section to right; piended vestry and office accommodation to outer left and right with crenellated parapets. NE elevation similar to SW. Paired, diagonally aligned gablehead stacks to vestry and office accommodation to NW.

Fixed, leaded lights throughout; stained glass to SE, SW and NW elevations and NE transept. Grey slate roof with metal ridges. Ashlar-coped, kneelered skews. Ashlar stacks with some circular, buff clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: Timber-boarded screen with chamfered detail to narthex. 4-shaft columns with simple roll-moulded capitals to 5-bay nave and 2-bay transepts; timber gallery across SE end of nave and NW aisle, with arcaded panel front; 2 steps up to chancel and baptistery with richly carved, arcaded stone detailing. Dark timber pews with chamfered detailing; richly carved, Gothic, timber communion table and lectern; octagonal timber pulpit (1862) on stone base; square Caen stone font (1910) supported on thick central stone shaft and 4 Iona marble corner shafts. Wagon ceiling to nave, chancel and transepts. Stone floor. Cantilevered stone stair to gallery with simple iron balustrade and polished timber handrail.