Saint Agatha

Introduction

Saint Agatha in Methil was designed by Reginald Fairlie in 1924. The foundation stone was laid on 14 December 1922 by Bishop Graham Grey from Edinburgh. The stone cross memorial to deceased parishioners came from the Old Church of 1903-1923.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is in Romanesque style, a rectangular-plan aisless church with 8-bay nave, side chapels and SE link to presbytery. The church is built of red brick and concrete blockwork. The church has red tiles and ashlar-coped skews. The NE elevation has a cross-finialled gable with full-width tiled loggia.

The SW elevation is a blank gabled elevation with stone-cross finial. The church has a boundary wall of red brick. The interior has a nave with dividing buttresses and fixed timber pews. The interior has arcading to flanking transeptal chapels and an altar rail with turned balusters.

The altar dates from 1938. The interior includes a timber panelled chancel with raised marble altar and piscina. The NW transept has a gothic-style carved altar and baldacchino with painted panels flanking statue of Christ. The SE transept (Lady Chapel) has a similarly detailed altar and statue of Our Lady.

The nave has a chronological succession of saints: Ninian, Patrick, Columba, Mungo, Cuthbert, Magnus, David and John Ogilvie. The stained glass in the Lady Chapel includes Holy Family and Nativity scenes signed by John Blyth. The stained glass by John Blyth bears the distinctive bumble bee signature. The NE stained glass depicts Saints Andrew, Agatha and Margaret.

The porch stained glass shows St Peter appears to St Agatha. The NW transept stained glass has triptych style scenes, Mary with Jesus flanked by angels, and saints, undergoing repair in 1998. The church features a chamfered string/cill course and a mutuled eaves course.