Sandwick Parish Church

The Sandwick Parish Church is a hall church dating to circa 1807, with substantial remodelling in 1897. It is a rectangular building with six bays, featuring a single-storey gabled entrance porch at the east centre and a porch/vestry projecting from the west gable. The walls are harled, with cement and droved and polished sandstone ashlar margins and details.

The east gable has modern timber doors with plate glass fanlights on the north and south elevations of the entrance porch. There are nine-pane fixed-lights centrally and to the left on the north elevation, and a Celtic cross at the gable apex. A single window is centred in the principal gable, behind which is a cement-rendered and lined belfry at the apex, gabled with a segmental-arched opening containing a bell.

The north elevation features round-arched windows in the centre and flanking bays, with blank bays to the extreme outer right and left. The west gable has a door to the left and a window to the right on the north elevation of the porch/vestry. A modern addition is situated in the re-entrant angle to the south, and a two-light timber mullioned window is centred in the principal gable behind, topped with a Celtic cross.

The south elevation is characterized by round-arched windows across the centre four bays; the centre two bays are keystoned, and the windows are lower on the extreme outer left and right.

Inside, the church has timber fittings, including vertically-boarded wainscoting, a lined ceiling with exposed beams resting on stone corbels. A raked gallery with panelled front is present at the east end. A balustrade fronts the pulpit to the west, featuring ball-finialled newels and a panelled screen with decorative cresting behind.

Fixed-lights of 15 panes are found in the principal round-arched windows, while other openings have 12-pane timber sash and case windows and nine-pane fixed-lights. The roof is covered in purple slate with cement-rendered skew copes.

A rubble dwarf wall with a concrete cope and decorative cast-iron railing surrounds the south, east, and north sides. Cement-rendered gatepiers with corniced pyramidal caps are situated on either side of the porch, displaying two-leaf decorative cast-iron gates.

Sandwick was remodelled in 1897 when the two rectangular doors were converted to windows, porches and a bellcote were added, and the pulpit was moved from the south to the west wall. The church remains in ecclesiastical use.