St James' Parish Church, Prestwick Road, Ayr

St James' Parish Church is an 1885 Gothic church designed by John Murdoch, situated on a corner site in Ayr. The church is two storeys high with three bays, featuring aisles. It is constructed of squared and snecked sandstone with buttresses dividing the bays and pointed-arched openings.

The southeast (entrance) elevation, facing Prestwick Road, is gabled with a central entrance within the gabled central bay, featuring a pair of timber doors and a fanlight. Flanking the entrance are quatrefoil roundels, and above is a three-light tracery window with a hoodmould and a quatrefoil tracery roundel in the gablehead. A pinnacle rises from a buttress to the right. A three-light window with a hoodmould is located at ground floor level in the bay to the right, with a matching three-light tracery window above. To the outer left is a recessed tower, two stages high, with a three-light window at the first stage and bipartitely louvred openings at the second stage, topped by a castellated parapet and a corner pinnacle.

The southwest (Falkland Park Road) elevation has five bays, with the tower at the outer right. It features two-light openings at both ground and first floor levels in the five bays to the left. The tower is as previously described.

The church has leaded and stained glass windows and a grey slate roof with stone skews.

Inside, gilded Corinthian columns and barley sugar stair balusters are noteworthy. There's a pointed-arched gallery arcade, a ribbed ceiling, timber pews and gallery, and timber furnishings. The organ, by H Hilsdon and dated 1925, is housed in a timber-panelled sanctuary, and a rose window is also present.

A church hall, designed by Alex Mair in 1933, is a single storey with six bays, built of red sandstone (harled to the side). It features an advanced square-headed entrance that breaks the roofline, with a pair of timber doors, a fanlight, and flanking windows. The interior includes a timber floor, a round-arched proscenium, and an arched banded ceiling.

The manse is a single and two-storey structure with five bays. A re-entrant angle entrance is located in the single-storey section connecting the vestry with the manse, with a bipartite window to the outer left. The third gabled bay to the left has a tripartite window at ground floor and a bipartite window at the first floor, both round-arched. A later gabled bay extends to the outer right, with windows on both ground and first floors, and windows to a recessed bay between. The manse is characterised by plate glass timber sash and case windows, as well as some more modern windows; it has a grey slate roof with ridge stacks and circular cans.

Gatepiers of square plan mark the central church entrance, topped with iron lamp standards. Similar gatepiers are present at the outer right of the entrance to the manse and at the central entrance to the church hall. Two-leaf iron gates provide access at all entrances. Iron railings top sections of a coped boundary wall that encloses the site.