Thurso West Church and Church Rooms, Sinclair Street, Thurso

Heritage listing

Category B Date Added 28/11/1984 Local Authority Highland Planning Authority Highland Burgh Thurso NGR ND 11501 68152 Coordinates 311501, 968152 — Church; David Smith, architect and builder, 1859. Gothic; coursed dressed rubble, tooled ashlar dressings. Orientated SE-NW with main entrance front to Sinclair Street, and rear access from Princes Street. Rectangular church with advanced tower in centre SE gabled front with pointed headed recessed porch in base of tower, clasped buttresses terminating in (truncated) pinnacles, octagonal belfry with lucarned spire. Cusped Y-tracery windows in 1st and 2nd stages of spire, louvred at 2nd stage; small pointed headed louvred vents in each face of octagonal belfry. Cusped Y-tracery windows flank entrance; similar windows light 5-bay side elevations. Large hoodmoulded Perpendicular window lights NW gable, fronted by low, single storey bowed vestry with Tudor arched entrance at left (blind similar entrance right); Easdale slate roof. Interior; simple galleried interior; canted U-shape gallery supported by plain cast-iron clustered columns, with panelled frontage; coffered ceiling; grained wooden pews; Gothic detailing to pulpit backboard. Church Room: contemporary. or near contemporary gabled Gothic church room at N angle, with large Perpendicular gabled porch entrance from Robertsons Lane. Polygonal end stack; slate roof. Low coped retaining wall with cast-iron spearhead railings and matching pair gates to Sinclair Street. Square tooled rubble pair gate piers with shallow pyramidal caps; similar end piers; dry stone wall to Princes Street. — Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Fronts Princes St. to NW and Robertsons Lane to NE. Formerly Free Church incorporating former Secession congregation. Spire measures 110 ft. Church built

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.