Holy Trinity Church, Fullarton Street, Ayr

Holy Trinity Church, Ayr, was designed by John Loughborough Pearson and built in 1888, with completion by his son, Frank Pearson, between 1898 and 1900, and the tower completed by Roger Pinckney in 1964. It is an Early English Gothic church constructed from coursed, squared sandstone. Buttresses divide the bays, with a continuous cill course and lancet-arched openings.

The south elevation (entrance front) features a three-stage square-plan tower to the left. The original lower two stages of the tower are complemented by the third stage added in 1964. Blind and lancet openings are arranged alternately at the second stage arcade, with three arched, louvred openings above; decorative corbelling sits above this, topped by a castellated parapet and a pyramidal roof with a cross finial at the apex. A buttress divides the paired arched entrance, with central trumeau columns forming two arches. Glazed doors are set within the arches, and roundels with a narrow arrowslit opening are set within the spandrels to the left. Further openings are positioned above, and another cross finial adorns the gablehead. A single opening is visible in the gabled bay to the outer right, with a cross finial to its gablehead, and an octagonal turret is set to a buttress.

The north (rear) elevation is three bays wide. It incorporates a tracery window to St John's Chapel on the outer left, and a rose window aligned above the South aisle gable. The sanctuary is defined by two stages of three openings, with moulded roundels flanking the taller, central window on the upper stage; arrowslit and gablehead detailing further accentuate the design. Two single openings are placed at a lower height to the right, alongside a stack located on the blank gablehead of the North aisle.

The east (side) elevation comprises four lancet openings along the South aisle, with the bay to the outer left being blank; hoodmoulds define the openings. A three-bay section defines the lower St John’s Chapel, featuring a hoodmould and timber door to the outer left, and a pair of bipartite openings in the left and central bays. Three traceried openings are positioned above the sanctuary.

Internally, the church features a stone arched clustered column arcade to the nave, with moulded haunch and annulet sections. Timber pews are present throughout. A baptistry sits in the southwest corner, housing a stone font by C. Pilkington Jackson, along with a bell on a stand. The organ, located in the northwest corner, has pendants to its pipes, with a connecting door leading to the robing-rooms. A carved stone pulpit depicts Christ and the apostles. A wrought-iron rood screen can be found in the choir, alongside poppyhead finials to the timber pews. The sanctuary features a gilded, painted timber triptych reredos above the High Altar, designed by Frank Pearson; a pedimented aumbry is located to the left, and sedilia and a stone piscina to the right. St John’s Chapel, originally the Lady Chapel, is situated in the northeast corner. It includes a wrought-iron screen and a carpet replicating the 16th-century Ardabil Persian Carpet held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Stained glass includes work by Clayton & Bell. The church is roofed with grey slate and red ridge tiles, incorporating stone skews, a wallhead stack, and circular cans.

A church hall, dating from 1860 and formerly the church school, is a single-storey, ten-bay structure built from rubble. It has three entrances on the southeast elevation, positioned in the first, sixth and ninth bays, and windows breaking the eaves to form dormers in the seventh and eighth bays. Timber windows, a grey slate roof, stone skews, rooflights, gablehead stacks, and circular cans are also features.

Iron gatepiers mark the church entrance, while a stone gatepier denotes the church hall entrance. Iron railings sit atop a boundary wall to the entrance elevation, and a coped harled wall runs along the northeast elevation, with a brick wall to the northwest.