St Kessog's Church, Ancaster Square, Callander

St Kessog's Church, built in 1883 by Robert Baldie, is an Early Gothic Pointed Style church situated prominently on the north side of Ancaster Square, facing south towards the Main Street in Callander. It replaced an earlier local parish church dating from 1773.

The church is square in plan and features a confidently designed and well-executed facade with an impressive, tall, steepled entrance. A staircase of steps leads to the gabled entrance on the principal (south) elevation, which was landscaped in 1990 when the church was converted into a visitor centre.

The tower rises above the entrance and is buttressed at the corners, with a clock face on three sides. A slender spire ascends from above the clock stage, featuring closely-packed conical finials at its base. A belfry, fitted with gabled plate tracery windows with timber louvers, is located at the base of the spire, which is topped by a ship weather vane.

Flanking the tower are single bays arranged internally as vestibules, providing access to the upper parts of the church. Each vestibule has a long, shafted lancet window. The setback gabled main body of the church extends outwards. Each bay features a quatrefoil set above a paired, shafted lancet window. The west and east elevations each have three gabled bays, with three lancet windows above and below the former gallery level. A gabled sanctuary is at the rear, adjoined by a lean-to outshot built in 1900 to house the organ chamber.

During the church's conversion, the main body of the building was gutted, the galleries were removed, and a floor was inserted to create a large space in the upper part of the church. The only remaining original fabric is in the central entrance hall and the adjoining southwest vestibule. A bipartite pointed arch with central floriated columns provides access from the hall to a stone stair with cast iron balusters. The stair originally led to the galleries, but now provides access to the “Rob Roy Story” on the first floor (installed in 2004). The southeast vestibule has been rearranged to include lift access to the first floor.

The church is constructed from snecked blonde rubble with polished blonde sandstone dressings. It has predominantly clear leaded lights; stained glass is present in the north lancets, depicting various female figures gathered below Christ, in memory of Katherine Elizabeth Buchanan (1905), although these are now inaccessible. The roofs are pitched grey slate. Cast iron rainwater goods are present, inscribed with the date 1883 on the hoppers.