Forres, High Street, Castlehill Church

NJ05NW 136 03530 58777

Castlehill Church

(C of S) [NAT]

OS 1:2500 map, 1973.

NJ05NW 136 03530 58777

EXTERNAL REFERENCE:

Scottish Record Office

Alteration and seating for the U.P. Church.

Advertisement for tenders for mason, carpenter, plaster and painter work.

Architects: A. and W. Reid, Elgin

'The Elgin Courant'.

1852 GD 185/1/31

Castlehill Church is situated at the corner of Castlehill Road and the E end of the High Street.

Cruciform, but basically rectangular in plan. The church is in the Gothic style with the N gable to High street. Decorated and Gothic windows flanked by porches with pointed arched entrance. Octaognal buttresses up to the parapet

The Church is now out of use and now has the windows boarded up. The internal arrangment of the church was not examined on the date of visit.

The architect was John Rhind and the church was completed between 1870-71. It was originally a United Presbyterian Church, later converted to serve as St Laurence Church (NJ05NW 20) Halls.

Visited by RCAHMS (DE, AL), 7 May 2010

Decorated Gothic; cruciform plan. Coursed, stugged rubble, tooled ashlar dressings, slated roof. N gable to High street with large decorated and Gothic window flanked by square porches with pointed arched doors, moulded reveals and nook shafts; Y-tracery windows on return elevation. Decorated parapet and angle pinnacles. 5-bay nave with paired lancets in aisles and geometric traceried clerestory windows with gabled and finialled heads. Tall transepts with decorated windows, single bay chancel. N gable with decorated head and flanking moulded octagonal buttresses rising through the parapet to form shafted and gabletted pinnacles. Slate roof.

Originally United Presbyterian Church. Now converted internally to serve as St Laurence Church Halls. Corner site with Castlehill Road. (Historic Scotland)