Viewfield Church Including Boundary Wall, Irvine Place

Viewfield Church, built in 1860, is a relatively unaltered Victorian Gothic church designed by local architects F & W Mackison—the only surviving church by this practice. It sits prominently on a hillside at the corner of Irvine Place and Viewfield Place in Irvine, though a later row of buildings now partially obscures it from street level. The church was constructed for a United Presbyterian congregation and now serves a Church of Scotland congregation.

The building cleverly exploits its awkward hillside site by locating a church hall beneath the eastern end, raising the church entrance above street level and maximizing use of the available land. The rectangular plan comprises four bays.

The asymmetrical gabled entrance elevation, which faces Viewfield Place, gains vertical emphasis from a tall spire with a splayed foot mounted on a square clock tower to the right of the gable. The original lucarnes at the base of the spire have been removed. The elevation is constructed of ashlar with staged angle and diagonal buttresses that define the bays. A pointed-arch arcade at ground level incorporates the central main entrance with double timber boarded doors. The gable is dominated by a large central window with geometric tracery, which internally lights an upper vestibule and the church gallery (now used as a committee and office area) but is not visible from the main nave.

The four-bay nave is defined externally by alternating pointed-arch windows and staged angle buttresses. The western gable contains another large pointed-arch tracery window above a single-storey double-gabled vestry projecting westward from the nave. A trefoil opening sits in the gable head, possibly lighting the roof space above the nave ceiling.

The ground level around the church aligns with the main entrance, except on the north side where it is excavated to provide light and access to the sunken hall at the eastern end. The church connects directly to Viewfield Place below via a later gateway between shop units and a flight of concrete steps. A mid-20th century church hall has been added to the rear.

Interior: The main body follows a typical Presbyterian plan without an apse at the west end; instead, the western tracery window forms the backdrop to a wood-panelled chancel. This window received new stained glass designed by Christian Shaw in December 1999. A gallery supported by cast-iron Corinthian columns originally ran along the southeast end of the nave and was extended to a U-shape in 1876. A depressed-arch ceiling is divided into four bays by moulded ribs that return to brackets projecting from the upper nave wall. A large timber and leaded glass depressed-arch window in the upper east wall of the nave borrows light from the main window of the east elevation. Staircases from the ground-floor main vestibule provide access to the first-floor gallery and to the sunken church hall; one features cast-iron barley-twist balusters. Cast-iron columns similar to those of the gallery are found in the sunken church hall. Much of the woodwork and chancel furniture dates from 1946–47, created by joiner and congregation member William Summers, though the pews are thought to come from the Presbyterian church this building replaced. An organ, made by Lewis & Co. of Brixton, was installed at the west end in 1949.

Materials: Squared rubble with ashlar dressings and buttresses. Windows are mostly leaded quarries with stained glass margins, later fitted with wire meshing to exteriors. The west window features late 20th-century stained glass. Original two-leaf timber tongue-and-groove doorways with wrought iron fixings serve the exterior; interior doorways are timber boarded. Pitched roofs are covered with Port Dunnock slates.

A boundary wall surrounds the church.