St Andrews United Reformed Church

St Andrews United Reformed Church

A chapel in the Early Decorated Gothic style, designed to resemble a parish church with considerable architectural ambition and detail. Built of coursed rock-faced Pennant sandstone with Bath stone dressings and a slate roof behind coped gables.

The building comprises a lofty nave, a northwest tower and spire, shallow transepts, a lower and narrower chancel (which houses an organ), and a hall and Sunday School on the south and east sides.

The asymmetrical west front is the principal elevation. It features flanking stair towers to the gallery: the south tower is two storeys, while the north is taller and carries the lofty spire. The west doorway is modelled on the west door of Tintern Abbey. Two doorways are set within an outer arch, which has three orders of nook shafts, foliage capitals and a moulded arch. The doorways themselves have a single central shaft and cusped heads. The tympanum of the outer arch contains blind tracery incorporating cusped circles against a diaper-work back surface. Each doorway has double doors with vertical ribs. The doorway is flanked by two-light windows with impost bands carried over as a hood mould, and foundation stones below the sills. The five-light west window, said to have been modelled on a window in Melrose Abbey, has a sill band and crocketed ogee gable, with hood and head stops. An angle buttress to the right side has a gabled cap with blind arcading and a polygonal pinnacle.

The south stair tower is two storeys, with angle buttresses and a hipped roof behind a plain parapet incorporating blind arcading to the abutment with the main chapel. Its west doorway has a pointed arch with continuous moulding and double doors with vertical ribs. Above this is a three-light landing window with sill band. On the south side of the tower is a cusped light with hood and foliage stop, above which is a three-light landing window with sill band.

The north tower incorporates the gallery stairs and rises in three stages, crowned by a tall parapet spire. It has angle buttresses with gabled offsets to the lower stage. A projecting doorway is set under a gabled hood, with three orders of shafts having foliage capitals, a finely moulded arch with cusped inner order, and double ribbed doors. A hood mould has foliage stops. A cusped roundel beneath the apex contains radiating blind tracery. The north side has a two-light window with hood mould and impost band, above which is a small cusped light with hood mould lighting the stair. The middle stage has a sill band; each face features a five-bay arcade with shafts and foliage capitals to cusped arches. The outer bays are blind, while the three inner bays have narrow lancet windows. The buttresses have gabled offsets to this stage. The tall bell stage has two two-light windows with ringed shafts and foliage capitals and louvres, inset with raked sills. Diaper work appears above the windows, and the parapet has blind arcading and coping. The buttresses are crowned by broad polygonal pinnacles with spirelets. The octagonal parapet spire has two-light lucarnes in the cardinal directions. Red sandstone bands incorporate small roundels and a string course with gabled hoods.

The north side, facing Marlborough Road, comprises four buttressed bays with three-light windows, of which the second from the west end is beneath a gablet with an impost band. The shallow north transept has a five-light window and angle buttresses. Beyond it is a further bay with a three-light window. Set back against the east return wall of the nave is a polygonal porch with a ribbed door in a moulded surround and lintel, and cusped lights in the side facets. The north side of the chancel has a single cusped light; a rose window to the east wall is positioned above a hipped-roof projection with canted mullioned bay windows.

The south side of the main chapel has three-light windows similar to those on the north. The south transept window is glazed only in the tracery lights. A short link connects the transept to the hall and Sunday School on the south side of the chapel.

The hall's west elevation has angle buttresses, with doorways to the right and left having ribbed doors under pointed arches with glazed quatrefoils to the tympana. Above each doorway are three stepped lights. In the centre is a projecting polygonal bay with two-light windows, a parapet with moulded cornice and red sandstone coping. Above it are shallow buttresses framing triple cusped and transomed windows lighting the gallery, with a small window above. The south wall has a cusped lancet at the west end, then five cusped lancets grouped together further to the right.

The one-and-a-half storey Sunday School projects on the southeast side of the hall. Its west elevation has a pointed doorway to the left with a ribbed door under a shouldered lintel and a glazed cusped light in the tympanum. To its right are three pairs of cusped lights and two gabled three-light roof dormers with timber-framed gables. The faceted south wall has three-light windows with cusped lights. The east side has two similar two-light windows and three roof dormers similar to those on the west. The east side of the hall has an added hipped lean-to below triple cusped lights. The south side of the chancel has a hipped outshut housing a vestry and additional school rooms.

Interior

The entrance vestibule contains two two-light Tudor Gothic glazed screens opposite the entrance. Double panelled half-lit doors are positioned to the right and left of the screen, with similar doors in the side walls leading to the stairs. The open-well stairs have open arcaded balustrades.

The lofty and spacious interior of the main chapel has a six-bay hammerbeam roof. The bay opposite the transepts is wider; the brackets and arched braces are cusped on their upper sides, with crown posts and a boarded underside. Transverse arches with openwork spandrels span between the hammerbeams. The transepts have two-centred arches with one order of ringed nook shafts and foliage capitals. The transept windows have hood moulds with foliage stops; the south transept window is blind below the transom.

The chancel arch has three orders of ringed shafts with foliage capitals, a two-centred arch and hood mould with crowned heads to the stops. A west gallery is supported on two cast iron columns with foliage capitals, cast by Walter Macfarlane & Co of Glasgow. The gallery front has blind cusped arcading.

The main pews have moulded ends. Choir stalls have poppy heads and moulded backs. The polygonal pulpit has two segmental-headed panels in each facet. The organ has blind arcaded panelling below the pipes.

The hall has a five-bay roof with diagonal braces on corbelled brackets. A reredos is partly concealed behind an inserted stage and comprises a two-centred arch with foliage stops. A west gallery has a panelled front incorporating open ironwork panels. A separate room beneath the gallery has porches to the outer sides.