St Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Slitrig Crescent, Hawick, Hawick, Scottish Borders

Description

George Gilbert Scott, 1857-8; vestry added by Robert S Lorimer and John Fraser Matthew, 1908. Early Decorated style church aligned NE to SW with steeply-pitched gabled roof, crow-stepped bellcote, bow-ended chancel, gabled porch, vestry adjoining NW elevation and gabled, pointed-arch nave windows breaking eaves. Squared, snecked whinstone with tooled and polished yellow sandstone ashlar dressings. Deep, ashlar-coped base course; cill course; eaves course; wallhead corbel table to chancel and apse. Hoodmoulds with foliate stops to chancel and SW elevation; cross-shaped gable finials. Tabbed quoins, those to SW gable and porch with inset colonnettes; saw-tooth coped stop-chamfered buttresses; regular fenestration with tabbed, chamfered margins; predominantly bipartite pointed-arch lights to main body of church with quatrefoils to tympanums; trefoil-headed lights with flanking inset colonnettes to chancel.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: 2-leaf, timber-boarded door with elaborate wrought-iron strap hinges in shoulder-arched doorway set within colonnetted and chamfered pointed-arch recesses with floreate carved tympanum to projecting gabled porch. 2-bay transept to left of NW elevation with tall octagonal gablehead stacks and low, lean-to vestry. Statue of St Cuthbert with the head of St Oswald (see NOTES) in trefoil-headed niche to centre of chancel. SW elevation with two 2-light, Y-traceried windows with colonnette mullions flanked by lancets; vesica window in apex of gable.

Stained glass to church (see NOTES); predominantly fixed, diamond pane, leaded lights to vestry. Timber-boarded doors with wrought-iron strap hinges. Grey slate roof with metal ridge. Ashlar-coped saw-tooth skews. Yellow sandstone ashlar stacks. Predominantly cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative hoppers.

INTERIOR: Whitewashed, with polished sandstone window reveals, columns and detailing. 4-bay nave with foliate-capitalled columns; foliate-capitalled colonettes flanking windows; hoodmoulds with foliate stops. Buff, red and black geometrically patterned ceramic floor tiles. Elaborately carved, traceried, 5-arched timber rood screen (see NOTES). Chamfered timber pews; Gothic-traceried timber choir stalls; Gothic timber lectern; polished timber communion rail with delicate cast-iron supports. Blind trefoil-headed stone arcading to apse; Caen stone altarpiece (see NOTES); hexagonal stone pulpit; square stone font supported by 1 central and 4 corner shafts and with timber and cast-iron cover, all with Gothic detailing. Cast-iron radiators. Timber roof with closely spaced arched braces and painted detailing (see NOTES). Chamfered, painted stone corner chimneypiece in vestry.

GRAVEYARD WALLS: Roughly squared, snecked whinstone wall surrounding all four sides of graveyard, with chamfered yellow sandstone ashlar cope and terminal piers.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. A fine, mid-19th-century, early-Gothic-style church by George Gilbert Scott, one of the foremost church designers of the period, which retains high-quality contemporary and early-20th-century furnishings. The church is oriented NE-SW to follow the line of the adjacent Slitrig Water.

The 5th Duke of Buccleuch donated the site, funded the construction of the church and provided an annual endowment. The foundation stone was laid in 1857, and the church was consecrated in 1858.

Scott (1811-78) was based in London, and was one of the leading and most prolific architects of the period. He had commenced practice in 1835 and achieved prominence principally as a designer of churches and public buildings. He carried out a considerable amount of work in Scotland from 1853 onwards. His most famous works in London include the Foreign Office and St Pancras Station Hotel; other works in Scotland include the Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh.

The statue of St Cuthbert on the exterior of the chancel wall shows the saint holding his traditional attribute, the head of St Oswald, King of Northumbria. This derives from the story that Oswald's head, the only remaining relic after his death and mutilation in battle in AD 642, was placed with the body of St Cuthbert (AD 635-687) when it was at Lindisfarne to protect it from invading Danes. When both were transferred to the newly built Durham Cathedral in 1107, they were found to be incorrupt.

The altarpiece, which depicts the Crucifixion with St Mary and St John and adoring angels, was designed in 1905 as a memorial to Canon Dakers by Scott's second son J Oldrid Scott (1841-1913), who had assisted his father towards the end of the latter's life and had inherited his practice. In the same year the prominent Edinburgh Arts & Crafts architect Robert Lorimer (1864-1929) designed the rood screen. The vestry was added 3 years later, to mark the church's 50th anniversary. It was designed by Lorimer and John Fraser Matthew (1875-1955), who had entered into an informal partnership with him in that year. The font is by David Kerr of Edinburgh. The stained glass includes chancel windows by Thomas Ward of London, and the 1889 west window, a memorial to the 5th Duke of Buccleuch. The furnishings were made by Scott Morton & Co in 1908. List description revised following resurvey (2008).

External Links

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