Millburn Church, Main Street, Renton

Millburn Church, built around 1845 and likely designed by John T Rochead, is a Gothic-style church with a cruciform plan. It displays Early English architectural features with a later Gothic central entrance tower. The front of the church is constructed of ashlar stone, while the rear and side elevations use squared and snecked stone, with ashlar margins and dressings applied throughout. Lancet windows are a prominent feature, along with an eaves course, base course, angle buttresses, and squat pyramidal pinnacles.

The east elevation presents a symmetrical ashlar facade. A four-stage entrance tower rises centrally and extends into a crocketted spire in a style reminiscent of the Scott Monument—a telescopic design. Flanking the tower are buttressed bays, and recessed flanking transepts. A pointed arch doorway is framed by a moulded surround, and narrow lancets are located at the second and third stages. Gabletted lancets with pinnacled flying buttresses feature at the third stage, with small lancets above. Narrow, finialled angle pilasters run through the upper two stages. The crocketted spire has gablet detailing, and a lead weathervane sits atop it. Flanking buttressed bays incorporate lancets, angle buttresses, and pyramidal finials. Blocked lancets mark the transepts to the left and right.

The north elevation features a gabled transept constructed from squared and snecked sandstone with ashlar margins and dressings. A blocked, stepped three-light lancet window is visible, along with angle buttresses and a ringhead cross finial with trefoil cusped arms. A date stone bearing “1845” is set into the gablehead.

The west elevation showcases a lower gabled chancel. A blocked, stepped three-light lancet window is present, with a door located at ground level below the central lancet. Three lancets are on the returns to the right and left; a tall lancet is situated at the right and left transept.

The south elevation features a gabled transept which incorporates a three-light window, a 1845 datestone in the gablehead, and lancets on the returns to the right and left. A ringhead cross finial with trefoil arms is also present.

The pointed-arch lancet windows are now all blocked, rendered, and lined. The church has a grey slate roof with ashlar coping to the skewbacks and skewputts.

The church’s interior was gutted and inaccessible when inspected in 1994.

The graveyard contains a range of fine grave monuments dating from the mid to later 19th century, including an obelisk monument dedicated to John Hathieson, who died in 1874, and a Ruskinian Gothic monument to William Murray, who died in 1872, featuring an exotic lotus leaf finial.

A rubble boundary wall with semicircular coping surrounds the graveyard to the north, west, and east. A low wall is topped with cast-iron railings, with cusped heads to the east.