St Michael's Church, Linlithgow

St Michael's Church, Linlithgow

This spectacularly sited Gothic cruciform church stands on a promontory beside Linlithgow Palace between the loch and town. Built between approximately 1425 and 1532, probably under the direction of builder or architect John Frenssh, it was restored in 1812 and again between 1894 and 1896 by the architectural firm Honeyman and Keppie, with possible assistance from C R MacKintosh. A modern spire was added to the tower in 1964 by Geoffrey Clarke.

The church is constructed of squared and coursed cream sandstone rubble and features a tower at the east end, a canted chancel apse, and eight-bay side elevations incorporating a transept and porch to the south elevation and a transept and vestry to the north elevation. The building is enriched with base and string courses, buttresses to the north, south and east elevations, and corner diagonal buttresses with canopied image niches—notably a figure of St Michael at the southwest buttress. Pointed doorcases and windows display four-light flowing cusped tracery to the nave and chancel aisles, with flamboyant tracery to the south aisle and panel tracery to the apse. Round-headed clearstorey windows feature cusped Y-tracery beneath hoodmoulds with carved label stops. The church is crowned with wide crenellated parapets and adorned with gargoyles.

The west entrance elevation comprises three bays with an advanced central tower flanked by aisle windows. The tower itself has five stages with a polygonal stair-turret at its northwest angle. The west elevation features a door with a trumeau flanked by doors with gothic panel tracery, surmounted by a tympanum with a niche flanked by panel tracery. Above this stands a three-light panel tracery window, with a small lancet to the third stage and a larger lancet to the bell stage. The top stage displays a round window with mouchette tracery. The return to the right is detailed as the west elevation. The east elevation contains one window and is topped by a crenellated parapet with corner pinnacles, crowned by a modern aluminium spire.

The north side elevation features a gabled bay to the north transept off-centre to the left, with a window on its right return and a round stair-turret with conical roof set in a re-entrant angle on its left return. Four bays of the nave aisle extend to the right, each divided by buttresses. A blind door appears in the penultimate bay with a window set high above it. An advanced vestry bay with a door on its left return is flanked by windows to the chancel aisle. Regular fenestration lights the clearstorey.

The east elevation displays the canted apse with pointed windows to each side featuring panel tracery and canopied niches to the buttresses, beneath a piended roof.

The south side elevation mirrors the north elevation but without the vestry. A two-storey porch occupies the second bay from the left, featuring a clustered colonnette and foliate surround to a pointed arch doorway, with a canted oriel above displaying cusped round-headed windows and a pointed ashlar roof, flanked by narrow canopied niches between storeys. Inside the porch, a rib-vault covers the space, with a niche on the east wall, stone benches to the sides, and a south door with a deep pointed arch surround composed of clustered colonette and moulding, its gothic-decorated panelled two-leaf door and tympanum clearly visible. A round stair-turret with a polygonal cap set in a re-entrant angle stands to the left. The transept features a large, low hoodmoulded pointed arch window with fine cusped, mouchette trefaoil tracery. The clearstorey is regularly fenestrated.

The roof is covered with grey slate.

Interior

The interior comprises a three-storey, eight-bay arcade to the nave and chancel, with pointed arches resting on clustered columns. Side aisles, a triforium to the nave, and a clearstorey complete the structural arrangement. Stone rib-vaulting covers the porch, aisles and transepts, while a plaster vaulted roof spans the nave. A timber pulpit by Honeyman features angle niches with statues, and an octagonal stone font by Honeyman displays crocketted pinnacles to its angles at the base and trefoil panels above.

Stained glass windows feature prominently throughout the church. The apse contains four lights depicting the Creation by Clayton and Bell (1885). The south chancel aisle holds four lights showing St Ninian and three others with four monarchs by Alfred Webster of Adams, Glasgow (1914), and three lights of the Women at the Sepulchre by Cottier of London (1885). The south transept displays six lights depicting Christ and the Little Children by Clayton and Bell (after 1892). The south nave aisle contains four lights of the Evangelists by Morris and Co from Burne Jones's design (1899). The west end holds four lights showing the Adoration of the Magi and scenes of Christ with children by Herbert Hendrie (1936), while a three-light west window depicts the Transfiguration by Ballantine of Edinburgh (1898). The north nave aisle features four lights of Christ and the Little Children by Mayer of Munich (after 1909), and the north transept contains a single light depicting the Infant Samuel by Meikle of Glasgow.

Gateway and Associated Structures

A gateway to the church is constructed of stugged squared cream sandstone rubble with piers topped by pyramidal caps, fronted by two-leaf cast-iron gates with a low wall to the left surmounted by cast-iron railings.

The Livingston Burial Vault stands to the southeast outside the church, built in 1668 for George Livingston, 3rd Earl of Linlithgow. It features a stone-flagged ground level and includes a mort-safe, brought from the kirkyard, and a die wall.