Old Parish Church, Church Square, Duns

Old Parish Church, Church Square, Duns

This parish church dates from 1790, when its distinctive classical steeple was erected. The building was largely rebuilt to a similar pattern following a fire in 1879, with restoration completed in 1880 by the architects Wardrop and Reid. The steeple, however, was retained from the original structure.

STEEPLE

The steeple is constructed of droved cream ashlar sandstone with polished dressings. It rises as a three-stage square tower topped by an octagonal belfry and ashlar spire. The first two stages project from the south elevation of the church, divided by a band course and crowned with a cornice and blocking course. The base is finished with long and short quoins. The front doorcase features raised margins and a pediment, with a boarded door hung on wrought-iron hinges. The second stage contains a lugged frame to the front with a sunken panel bearing the inscription "ERECTED 1790 DESTROYED BY FIRE 1879 RESTORED 1880". The third stage sweeps in from the blocking course, with each face displaying a consoled open pediment above a blind oculus and an urn at each corner. The octagonal belfry is pierced with round-headed openings, alternately blind and louvred, and is topped with a cornice. An octagonal spire rises above, crowned with a wrought-iron weathervane finial.

CHURCH EXTERIOR

The church is a two-storey rectangular hall with a projecting gallery block to the south. The walls are constructed of cream sandstone in both squared and snecked coursed work and droved and stugged finishes, with some older dressed rubble also visible. The dressings are of polished ashlar, with a base course and long and short quoins. The eaves are moulded.

The north elevation features bipartite round-headed windows with chamfered arrises and stop-channelled mouldings. At the centre is a projecting open pedimented range with a window at ground level and an arcaded tripartite window at first floor that breaks into the pediment, with a corresponding hoodmould aligning with the eaves. The two-bay returns have windows to both floors. To the left, a range contains windows to both floors on its right side. An open pedimented porch at the centre has chamfered angles corbelled to square and a pilastered round-headed window with bracketed cill; a blank panel fills the gablehead. To the right, a pilastered round-headed doorcase features a panelled keystone and deep-set two-leaf boarded doors with wrought-iron hinges. A church hall (listed separately) connects to the porch on the left. The right range has windows to both floors on its left and a window at ground level to its right; a wall encloses a court to the front with semicircular coping and a pair of gatepiers with flattened pyramidal caps.

The west elevation has a projecting bay to the left with a tall round-headed window at first floor. Two bays to the right contain bipartite round-headed windows to the right at ground level and at both floors at first floor. A porch projects in a re-entrant angle at the centre.

The south elevation is composed of five symmetrical bays. The tower stands at the centre. The flanking bays have large full-height round-headed windows. The outer bays contain blind pedimented aedicules at ground level and round-headed bipartite architraved windows above. To the left stands a Gothic revival monument between bays; to the right, a pedimented monument of 1883 to the Hay family is set into an aedicule adjoining their burial enclosure.

The east elevation has round-headed windows. A projecting bay to the right contains a large window at first floor and a small narrow window at ground level to its left, adjoined by a hall to the right. A return to the left has a boarded door set deep into a round-headed pilastered doorcase with keystone. To the left are bipartite windows to both floors and a single window at ground level in a re-entrant angle. A lugged panel occupies the outer left.

The windows are leaded, mostly of stained glass. Piended roofs cover the main structure, with a pitched roof skylight at the centre; the slates are grey.

CHURCH INTERIOR

The interior dates from the 1880 restoration, with the possible exception of cast-iron columns with egg and dart moulding that support the gallery. Box pews and a panelled gallery retaining family pews of local estates survive. The roof is a spectacular oak hammerbeam design with coving at the centre supporting the skylight. The three-tier Connacher organ features blind arcading to the second tier and pipes with original stencilled decoration to the third tier. Steps to the pulpit rise from the organ console at the centre. Most of the stained glass dates from 1880 and is by D Small of Edinburgh. Old offering stools and plates remain in place. The black and terracotta tiled floor survives throughout.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS

A rubble boundary wall to the west features flat ashlar coping. A small stretch facing Church Square has saddleback ashlar coping and large chamfered gatepiers with base course and cornice; one gatepier clasps a corner of the church. A rubble retaining wall of the graveyard to the south has boulder coping.

GRAVEYARD

The graveyard contains burial enclosures marking the transepts and nave of the old church, belonging to families of Wedderburn, Duns Castle and Manderston. The Wedderburn aisle incorporates a lintel inscribed "DEATH CANNOT SINDER 1608 [REPAIRED MDCCLX111]" and a later inscription reading "Home of Wedderburn Burial Ground, Formerly covered by a vault The old stones here preserved were over the entrance door Having been erected by Sir George Home in 1608" with "ERECTED 1875" on the reverse.