Abbey St Bathans Church

Abbey St Bathans Church

This building occupies the site of a late 12th-century Cistercian priory. The former priory church was converted to a parish church in the mid 17th century. It underwent repairs in 1675 and 1699, internal alterations in 1719, and was first glazed in 1726. A bell was installed in the earlier tower in 1820. The church was heavily reworked between 1867 and 1868, when a porch and the present tower were erected. During this period the windows and doors were reworked with plate tracery added, and stained glass was inserted in 1868.

The building is constructed in plain Romanesque style. It comprises a rectangular-plan nave of three bays with a later single storey porch to the south-west and a square-plan two-stage tower with spire to the north-east, added in 1867. The nave is built of harl-pointed rubble whin and sandstone with cream sandstone dressings. It features rubble quoins and stugged long and short surrounds to lightly droved round-arched openings. The windows are recessed within trefoil-headed panels with quatrefoil details above. The porch is constructed of whinstone rubble with cream sandstone dressings, sandstone bracketed eaves, and stugged long and short surrounds to openings. It has a round-arched columnar doorpiece. The two-stage tower is built of whinstone rubble with a cream sandstone string course dividing the floors, sandstone brackets beneath corniced eaves, a gabled sandstone doorpiece, and voussoir arches to pointed-arched openings.

On the west (entrance) elevation, a two-leaf round-arched boarded timber door is set in the single storey porch recessed to the right of the nave, with a surrounding doorpiece featuring flanking scalloped-capital columns and a keystoned voussoir arch. A three-panelled window is centred in the nave to the left with a surmounting finial. The two-stage tower is recessed to the outer left.

The south (side) elevation has a four-panelled window in the outer right bay, a two-panelled window offset to the left of centre, and a single window in the piended porch advanced to the outer left. Remains of a wallhead sundial are visible to the outer right.

The east (rear) elevation features the two-stage tower recessed to the outer right with steps to a gabled doorpiece comprising a two-leaf boarded timber door with a stop-chamfered pointed-arched surround. The gable is finialed with a Turnbull coat of arms centred beneath the apex and flanking carved motifs. Above is the belfry with a recessed bipartite opening set in a pointed-arched surround, columns with cushion capitals dividing louvred bays, and a weathervane surmounting the broach spire. A two-panelled window is centred in the nave to the left (missing finial?), and a single storey porch is recessed to the outer left.

The windows feature stained glass with leaded circular panes and floral and foliate detailing. Roofs are covered with grey slate with raised stone skews and moulded skewputts. Cast-iron rainwater goods are present.

Interior

An inscribed memorial gravestone to Rev George Home, died 1705, is set in the vestibule wall. A round-arched boarded timber door accesses the nave. The interior has boarded timber dado panelling and boarded timber pews. The central aisle has a tiled floor, with boarded timber floors beneath the pews. The ceiling is a boarded timber hammerbeam. A timber-panelled pulpit has trefoil-headed carving to the table. An octagonal timber font dates to 1948. A pointed-arched opening accesses the north chapel (vestry). Round-arched painted panels flank the east window with Biblical text, and the window reveals are deep and painted with chamfered cills. A recumbent sandstone effigy is set in a later segmental-arched niche centred in the east wall. Later 20th-century light fittings are present.

Graveyard, Boundary Wall, Gatepiers and Gates

The church is surrounded by a near square-plan graveyard. Various gravestones are present, including a classically-detailed memorial to the Turnbulls in the north-west corner with inscribed recessed panels, dogtooth carving lining the upper reveals, and Corinthian-style capitals to red sandstone engaged columns flanking a central bay with a trefoil-headed upper centred beneath a gable. Some remaining stones feature figurative carving. The site is enclosed by rubble-coped random rubble walls, with stepped polished coping to the west wall. Tapering square-plan stop-chamfered sandstone gatepiers flank the entrance, with tiered pyramidal caps. Decorative wrought-iron gates with barley-sugar uprights and fleur-de-lys finials complete the boundary.