Parish Church, Balfron Road, Killearn

The parish church, located on Balfron Road in Killearn, was designed by John Bryce and built between 1880 and 1882. It is an Early English style cruciform church with a prominent tower and spire, the spire rising to a height of approximately 100 feet. The church is constructed from squared and snecked bull-faced sandstone, featuring a base course, string courses, and battered buttresses. Plate tracery windows are characteristic, along with hoodmoulds and foliate label stops. The pointed arch openings have chamfered reveals.

The main entrance elevation features a tower to the right. A broad door is centrally located within a gabled elevation, with a carved arch surround featuring the inscription "Nec tamen consumebatur" and a depiction of a burning bush above the arch. The door consists of two boarded panels with decorative iron hinges, flanked by small lights. Above the door is a stepped tripartite window, with the central light being a two-light design with a multi-foil above. To the left, the return elevation displays a gabled baptistery and aisles, buttressed and featuring a small light.

The tower is composed of three stages, topped by a tall stone spire. The first stage has slender lancet windows on each face. Roman numeralled clocks (made by Robert Bryson & Sons, Edinburgh) are positioned on two faces of the second stage, housed within hoodmoulded recesses. The third stage is battered and features paired, louvred lancets and a carved wallhead frieze, with buttresses flanking the features. The splayfoot spire has polygonal pinnacles rising from corner splays, with a blind arrowslit on each face and polygonal caps; gabled lucarnes with plate tracery and louvring are present on each side.

The north and south elevations both feature paired lancets in each centre bay, separated by dividing buttresses. Gabled transepts project outwards, with windows featuring three-light plate tracery, quatrefoils in the gablehead, and return doors to the east by the re-entrant angles. A tower is situated in the outer left (east) bay of the north elevation, while a gabled baptistery bay with a two-light window is positioned to the outer right of the south elevation. A modern extension, the Session House (built in 1967), stands to the southwest.

The west elevation presents a broad gable to the centre, topped by a cusped wheel window above a piend and single-story projecting vestry.

The windows contain leaded glazing. The roof is covered in graded grey slate with stone ridges. A stone stack is positioned on the skew of the rear gable, and diminutive gabled timber ventilators are found on the side pitches. Stone cross finials adorn most gableheads.

Inside, aisles are screened by a pointed arch arcade of columns with annulets and carved foliate capitals. An open timber roof is supported by stone corbels, and fleur-de-lys finials are present at the ends of the stalls. A polygonal timber pulpit and a stone font (designed by William Birnie Rhind, featuring an angel kneeling and bearing a basin) are also noteworthy. The organ has two sets of pipes flanking the wheel window. Stained glass is a significant feature: the principal wheel window is by James Ballantine & Son, Edinburgh; original windows were also by Kier of St Vincent Street, Glasgow, and Clayton & Bell, London; a modern window in the Session House, representing fishes (authority) by Sadie Maclennan, is also present.

Decorative wrought-iron railings and two-leaf gates enclose the church grounds. Square section gatepiers have chamfered angles and low pyramidal caps. Low rubble boundary walls are topped with ashlar coping, and a picket fence runs along the rear.