Boghall Parish Church

Boghall Parish Church

A distinctive Modernist parish church with an unusual saddle-shaped roof, built between 1963 and 1965 for the Church of Scotland to designs by the Fife-based architectural firm Wheeler & Sproson. The church is located on an open site at the centre of Boghall, a post-war housing scheme near Bathgate, and remains in use as a place of worship.

The roof is a hyperbolic paraboloid (saddle-shaped), rising to a point at the northeast and southwest corners. The opposite two corners slope downwards and are anchored to the ground by pairs of splayed, reinforced concrete abutments. A cantilevered bellcote originally stood over the northeast corner but was removed in 2003. The church is brick-built with roughcast walls. The upper walls are lit by a clerestory of plain and coloured glazing in a geometric design, which creates the appearance that the roof is floating above the walls. An adjoining single-storey entrance foyer (the Hall of Fellowship), with flat roof, connects to the east and features floor-to-ceiling replacement uPVC glazing.

The interior of the church is largely intact in its original layout and decorative scheme. The double-height sanctuary is kite-shaped on plan and is accessed from either side of the northeast corner via the adjoining Hall of Fellowship. Fixed pews line either side of a central aisle, with a raised chancel at the southwest corner and a gallery over the northeast entrance corner, carried on two slender columns.

The sanctuary features high-quality detailing throughout. The walls are grey facing brickwork and the double-curved ceiling is lined with yellow-coloured Columbian pine, as are the fixed pews. The floor is made of narrow boards of red-coloured hardwood. A vertical pattern of ribbed timber is carried through the doors, the front of the gallery and the ceiling of the Hall of Fellowship. The gallery has raked pews and a centrally positioned organ. The clerestory displays a range of blue, yellow and clear glass, framing the chancel at the southwest corner. Within the sanctuary are a wave-shaped pulpit of facing brick extending from the wall, a timber communion table, lectern, large freestanding cross, a glass baptismal font on a metal frame and a curtained screen.

The site is bounded by a low rubble stone wall with plain metal railings and pedestrian gates. An adjoining double-height rectangular-plan church hall and single-storey link block with ancillary accommodation, built in 1960 and adjoining the east end of the glazed entrance foyer, are excluded from the listing.

Historical Context

In the years after 1945, the Church of Scotland National Church Extension Committee outlined an ambitious plan of church building to parallel the expansion of housing. The Church of Scotland saw this as an opportunity to help shape newly emerging post-war communities and to ensure the established national church was a focal point for the future.

Boghall Church was established in 1958 and served the associated council estate, which was developed from the mid-1950s. Originally an extension to St John's Church Bathgate, the first services were held at Boghall Primary School. In 1960, a modest dual-use hall church was built on an adjacent site provided by Bathgate Town Council, comprising a community hall with sanctuary at one end.

By 1963, Boghall Parish Church had a well-established congregation and the growing community began raising funds for a purpose-built sanctuary. In November 1963, Wheeler & Sproson submitted plans for the new church. The firm had already gained critical acclaim for their experimental design of a new parish church for Glenrothes New Town, which opened in 1961.

Construction began in May 1964 and in October 1965 the ultra-modern church was opened by the High Commissioner to the General Assembly, Lord Birsay. The sanctuary is first shown adjoining the earlier hall-church via a new entrance foyer on the 1968 Ordnance Survey Map.

The footprint of the church complex appears to have remained unchanged since completion. The main alteration to the original design was the loss of the cantilevered concrete bellcote. Photographs from the 1970s show that supports were added to stabilise the structure, but it was eventually removed in 2003 when repairs were made to the roof and walls due to long-standing structural problems with the bellcote. Around the same time, the timber-framed glazing and doors of the entrance foyer were replaced with uPVC casements in a similar pattern to those installed in 1964.