Sites and Monument Record: Airth North Church (SMR 153)

Description
In 1817 work started on a new church building to the north of the village of Airth at a site convenient for Lord Dunmore as well as Graham of Airth. Graham Stirling of Airth Castle provided some monetary incentives and encouraged the move by active participation. The new church opened in 1820. It was designed by William Stirling of Dunblane (a relative of Graham), probably in collaboration with David Hamilton. Its orientation is from north-west to south-east, parallel with the road. It is built in the perpendicular or decorated Gothic style similar to Larbert parish Church, using pale greyish-yellow freestone ashlar obtained from a quarry west of the village. The church measures 65 ft by 40 ft externally (excluding buttresses) with a tower 16 ft 6 ins wide projecting 14 ft from the north-west end. At the south-east end there is an apsidal projection one storey high. The body of the church, which is seated for 800, consists of three bays subdivided by buttresses offset in two stages and terminating in crocketed finials; similar buttresses, with gablets at the lower stage, are set obliquely at the corners. Each bay contains a high, pointed three-light window with a transom and Gothic tracery, splayed jambs and a hood mould finishing in moulded steps. Above a projecting eaves-course there rises a high, pierced parapet; this runs up to the tower on the north-west gable and over the whole of the south-east gable, the south-east gable head being topped by an ornate cross. The roof is slated. The south-east end contains a single large window, similar to the side windows except that it contains five lights. The projection at the south-east end, which is a semi-octagon on plan, is provided with an entrance door on south-west and north-east, and a pointed two-light window facing south-east, but the doors are now permanently closed; it has four buttresses and a pierced parapet like that on the body of the church. The north-west end shows a two-light window, similar to those on the side walls on either side of the tower.
The tower comprises three stages, defined by string-courses, and is intaken slightly at the top of the lowermost stage. Buttresses with crocketed finials are set obliquely at its corners. The lowermost stage contains three similar entrances; one in each face; each has a Tudor arch with a flat hood-mould above it and tracery in the spandrels. The second stage shows three two-light windows, similar to those in the west gable; and the third stage two pairs of louvered lancets, each with its own hood-mould and each flanked by slender nook-shafts. It contains a Mears bell of 1824. The uppermost part of the tower is decorated with an ogival headed arcade, rising from corbels, above which is a moulded eaves-course enriched at regular intervals with floral ornament. The finials surmounting the tower were removed in the 1970s following a severe gale, and the tower now has a flat top. The wall-head bore the same high, pierced parapet seen on the body of the church.
The church is entered through a vestibule at the bottom of the tower, in which a geometric stair gives access to a gallery and to a small room, originally the session house. The seating faces a pulpit at the south-east end. A door to the right of the pulpit opens into the apsidal projection at the south-east end, which now serves as a vestry. A second door into it, on the left of the pulpit, has been blocked by an inserted organ. The horseshoe gallery, which is supported on iron columns and has a front decorated with arcading, runs along both sides and across the north-west end. It retains its original enclosed pews, while those on the ground floor, which have open ends, appear to be replacements.
Renovations carried out in 1890, including the replacement of the roof and raising the ceiling thus exposing the collar beams. With the dissolution of Airth South Church in 1956 the Old Parish Church became the only church in the village. A meeting room was inserted at the NW end of the gallery in the 1980s.