General exterior view of church

Description General exterior view of church

Date 1977

Catalogue Number LA 1963

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 716190

Scope and Content St Bride's Roman Catholic Church from the south-east, Whitemoss Avenue, East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire St Bride's Roman Catholic Church was built 1963-4 to designs by the architectural firm of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia. The church is a large rectangular brick structure entered via a cleft in the façade. A 27.4m high campanile (bell tower) was dismantled in 1986 after becoming unsafe. The church is linked to a low range of sacristy (building for storing sacred vessels and garments) and presbytery (priest's accommodation) buildings by a tunnel. This shows the church with its campanile still in place, from which bells were rung to summon worshippers. The sacristy and presbytery buildings have high windows and copper roofs, and are built from brick, to complement the vast church building behind them. The entrance cleft and rooftop dormers can also be seen. This large church seats up to 800 worshippers, entering via the unusual curving embrasure (slanted opening) into a space lit by light through the slatted wooden ceiling and roof lights which focus light onto the altar. A free-standing gallery provides extra seating above the baptistry, side chapels and confessionals. This building has been selected as one of Scotland's key 20th-century Modern architectural monuments. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/330304