Viewfield Church

Heritage listing

Category C Date Added 03/02/2006 Local Authority Stirling Planning Authority Stirling Burgh Stirling NGR NS 79542 93778 Coordinates 279542, 693778 — Viewfield Church, built in 1860, is a relatively unaltered and cleverly designed building in Victorian Gothic style, the only surviving church by local architects F & W Mackison. Set on the hillside at the corner of Irvine Place and Viewfield Place, the rectangular plan, 4-bay church occupies a prominent position in the skyline of the town. It once fronted directly onto Viewfield Place, however today (2005) a later row of partly obscure it from view at street level. The church makes clever use of its awkward hillside site by locating a church hall beneath the E end of the church, raising the church entrance above the street and making maximum use of the available land. The church was built for a United Presbyterian congregation, and now has a Church of Scotland congregation. Description: assymetrical, gabled entrance elevation, given vertical emphasis by a tall, splayed-foot spire atop a square clock tower to the right of the gable, now with the original lucarnes removed from the base of the spire. Ashlar, staged angle and diagonal buttresses define bays on the entrance elevation, and a pointed-arch arcade at ground incorporates the central main door, with double timber boarded doors. The gable of the elevation is dominated by a large central window with geometric tracery. Internally this window lights an upper vestibule into the church gallery (now used as a committee and office area), and is not visible from the main nave of the church. The 4-bay nave is defined externally by alternating pointed-arch windows and staged angle buttresses. To the W gable of the church another large pointed-arch, tracery window sits above a s

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.