St Meddans Church, St Meddans Street, Troon

St Meddans Church, Troon

St Meddans Church is a tall galleried Gothic church designed by John Bennie Wilson and built in 1888-89. It stands on a corner site and comprises a nave-and-aisles structure with a 5-stage tower to the east, an octagonal gallery stair turret to the west, a later single-storey L-plan church hall and rooms at the rear, and modern halls to the north.

The main building is constructed of squared and snecked bull-faced red Ballochmyle sandstone with polished sandstone dressings. Key architectural features include architraved cill and string courses, stepped buttresses with trefoil-headed detailing centred in the apex, a raised and polished eaves course, polished quoins, and polished long and short surrounds to chamfered openings. Windows are predominantly trefoil-headed with sandstone mullions and chamfered cills. The roofs are grey slate with pantile ridge tiling, raised stone skews, gabletted skewputts, and cast-iron rainwater goods. Small-pane leaded glazing predominates, with some decorative stained glass.

The south-east elevation on St Meddans Street displays a buttressed and gabled nave with two square-headed bipartite windows at ground level flanking a central vestibule, tiered buttresses to the outer left and right, and a 5-light pointed-arched window centred beneath the apex with trefoil-headed and rose tracery, surmounted by a cruciform finial. Steps lead to two-leaf boarded timber doors in gabled, buttressed porches at the outer left and right, dated "1888?" on the right side, with deep chamfered reveals and moulded stops to hoodmoulds and finialled gables. An octagonal stair turret is recessed to the outer left with narrow trefoil-headed openings at the upper stage and a finialled spire. A 5-stage tower is recessed to the outer right, comprising a main entrance at ground level (with dated porch), narrow slits to the lower stages, a clock face, and paired louvred belfry openings with traceried heads to the upper stages, surmounted by a cast-iron finial and broached spire.

The north-east elevation on Church Street displays a 5-bay arrangement with a grouped 1-3-1 pattern. The buttressed tower to the outer left comprises paired and single openings at lower stages with upper stages as described above. The three centre bays feature paired trefoil-headed windows at ground level, above which are tripartite trefoil-headed gallery windows centred in recessed panels. A gabled bay to the outer right contains a paired window at ground level, with a pointed-arched recessed panel aligned above comprising two trefoil-headed lights beneath a rose window centred in a gabletted apex. Adjoining the main building is a single-storey hall advanced to the right with regularly spaced shouldered-arched windows, a canted south end, and a pointed-arched window with trefoil-headed tracery in a gabled bay advanced to the outer right. Later church halls are recessed to the outer right with a gabled porch and ball-finialled gable.

The rear church hall is a single-storey L-plan structure built of squared and snecked stugged red sandstone with polished dressings and shouldered-arched surrounds to openings.

The interior features a tiled vestibule floor with timber dado panelling and plain cornice. The arcaded nave is supported by cast-iron columns beneath a 3-sided gallery with regularly spaced trefoil-headed panelling, rose stencilling centred in corbelled brackets, and a vaulted ceiling with plain cornice. Boarded timber dado panelling lines the walls, with timber pews (tiered in the gallery), a carved octagonal font, and a timber-panelled communion table. An organ by J & A Mirrlees, installed post-1889, is placed behind a timber pulpit (with cusp panelling to the front) inserted into the chancel arch. The stained glass windows include works by John Blythe (south-west window, 1977), Norman Macdougall of Glasgow (south-east window, circa 1927), and W Smith of Marylebone Road, London (1892, a large south window commemorating Provost James Gillies, depicting the healing of Jairus's daughter with excellent natural foliage detail).

The boundary wall comprises coped red rubble sandstone enclosing the site, with coursed red sandstone rectangular-plan piers flanking the entrance, decorated with rose motifs and pitched caps.