St Andrew's Parish Church, Main Street, Alexandria is a Grade B listed building in the West Dunbartonshire local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 22 July 1974.

St Andrew's Parish Church, Main Street, Alexandria

WRENN ID
eastward-chalk-storm
Grade
B
Local Planning Authority
West Dunbartonshire
Constituency
West Dunbartonshire MP: Douglas McAllister (Lab)
Country
Scotland
Date first listed
22 July 1974
OS grid reference
NS 391 799
Coordinates
55.98551, -4.58053
Source
Historic Environment Scotland listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Smollett Mausoleum, located in the churchyard of St Andrew's Parish Church on Main Street in Alexandria, dates back to 1840. This Gothic hall church features a rectangular plan and is constructed from painted stugged squared and snecked sandstone, with ashlar margins and dressings, and rough render on the side and rear elevations. The building includes a base course, an eaves cornice, and strip quoins.

On the west elevation, there is a two-stage tower with a spire situated in the center of a buttressed bay. It has a round-arched door with scalloped colonnette moulding and a two-leaf panelled door. Above this door is a three-light round-arched window, with corbelled clocks on each side and gabled sawtooth louvred lucarnes. The octagonal narrow spire is topped with a finial and a lead weathervane, and there are gabletted, pinnacled pilaster buttresses. The flanking buttressed bays feature round-arched windows with scalloped hoodmoulds.

The north and south elevations display an ashlar pilaster that divides the nave from the tower, with a five-bay nave and round-arched windows, along with a smaller round-arched window at the tower. The east elevation consists of a two-bay gabled block at the center with blank flanking bays, and a modern flat-roofed vestry built at ground level.

The interior is stripped, featuring two stained glass patterned windows dedicated to the Smollett family. The graveyard contains a range of mid to late 19th-century grave monuments, including a Celtic cross and slab memorials.

The Smollett Mausoleum itself is designed in the Romanesque Revival style and has a shallow T-plan, straddling the rear wall. It is made of honey-coloured sandstone ashlar with ashlar dressings and features zoomorphic and figurative sculptures. The gabled entrance bay has a Romanesque door adorned with chevron moulding, colonnettes, a hoodmould, zoomorphic labelstops, and a plaque in the gablehead topped with a cross finial and grotesque figurative corbel. The mausoleum includes narrow bays with recessed niches, an arcaded blind window with a hoodmould and grotesque labelstops, and shows significant weathering on the left return. It has a grey slate roof with ashlar ridging.

Additionally, there is a war memorial made of rusticated granite with a battered base and a primitive Celtic cross. The gatepiers and railings consist of octagonal piers with depressed finialled caps, a low plinth wall, and arrowhead cast-iron railings.

Local climate

St Andrew's Parish Church, Main Street, Alexandria sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,620 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 99% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 91% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 52 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 93% of listed buildings. Of these, 30 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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Nearby listed buildings

  1. Churchyard, St Andrew's Parish Church, Main Street, Alexandria Grade B 18 m
  2. Smollett Mausoleum, Churchyard, St Andrew's Parish Church, Main Street, Alexandria Grade B 49 m
  3. 252 Main Street, Alexandria Grade C 66 m
  4. Ardenlee, 304 Main Street, Alexandria Grade C 200 m
  5. Vale Of Leven Constitutional Club, Bank Street, Alexandria Grade C 203 m
  6. Alexandria Methodist Church, Albert Street, Alexandria Grade C 206 m
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  10. Smollet Fountain, Main Street, Alexandria Grade B 272 m