Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 566470
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/566470
St John's Parish Church, Main Street, from 1541
Stunning evidence of the 16th-century ambitions of the Sandilands. Commissioned, designed and paid for by Magister Peter Sandilands who, as the younger son of the sixth Knight of Calder, went into the church to become rector of Mid Calder. The long seven-bay church, three in the choir and four in the nave (with a lower roof and rectangular windows) with cloister opening from the choir, had progressed beyond the vestry and foundations of the choir on Sandilands' death. He left minute instructions to his nephew, Sir James Sandilands of Calder, future Lord Torphichen, as to what was to be built. The nave was never begun. In 1863, Brown & Wardrop added the transepts and belfry (replacing the site of the village school). Pleasant 1595 wooden bench pew with the initials JS and IL inscribed The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want; with a tympanum of thistles. Stained glass, 1895, by Hardman in an 1883 memorial window to James Paraffin Young. Outstandingly rich carved finials rising from the sacristy. Conservation work by Stewart Tod & Partners (taking care to protect the bat colonies)
Taken from "West Lothian: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Stuart Eydmann, Richard Jaques and Charles McKean, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
