South United Free Church & Mission Hall (Former)
Date 7 June 1998
Event ID 887731
Category Management
Type Site Management
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/887731
Scots gothic church with 3-stage tower, on ground falling steeply to SW. 4-bay nave with side aisles, clerestory and basement. Red bull-faced ashlar in uneven courses with ashlar dressings. String and eaves courses. Single, 2- and 4-stage sawtooth-coped buttresses, hoodmoulds. Traceried windows, quatrefoil roundels, pointed-, shoulder-arched and square-headed openings, chamfered reveals and stone mullions.
Opened as the Free Church on 27th August, 1882 by Rev Dr Whyte of Free St George's, Edinburgh. With seating for 800 the building, of Alloa stone with exterior woodwork of teak, cost some '5000 plus an extra '100 for the belfry. All upper windows were double glazed and the spire, reaching 120', is based on that of Dunblane Cathedral.
The architect, J J Stevenson, was an ex-patriot Glaswegian, by 1882 hailing from Bayswater, London: he was a key player in the revival of Scots Gothic and a father figure for the "London Scots" who went south after the Glasgow Bank crash. Building was carried out "under the superintendence of Robt Ewan Esq, architect Glasgow, and Hew Miller Esq, factor, Ochtertyre" (Chatburn). The organ was installed in 1899, and in 1900 the United Presbyterian and Free Churches combined. When Monzievaird Church closed in 1964 the congregation divided between Crieff South and West Churches. (Historic Scotland).
