Saint Margaret Mary's Church, Granton

Introduction

Reginald Fairlie designed Saint Margaret Mary's Church in Granton, Edinburgh, in 1938, originally as a church hall. The church is a Category B listed building, added on 16/09/1998.

History

This church is one of Fairlie's last ecclesiastical designs, acknowledging contemporary fashion in the use of exposed brick and the flat roof of the vestibule, but essentially rooted in the historicist tradition.

Architecture and furnishings

The church hall became the church after plans for a large adjacent church were abandoned. The church has a cruciform plan with a 6-bay aisled nave and a Cape Dutch design with modernist details. Stained glass includes a circular window showing Jesus appearing to Margaret Mary. The church is part of a B group with the adjacent presbytery, also by Reginald Fairlie.

The church is brick rendered and painted white above sill level, with brick and stone dressings. The south elevation has a central projecting vestibule with a pair of recessed entrances with brick architraves. The south gable is Cape Dutch style, punctuated by a circular window with brick surround and surmounted by a stone cross. The north entrance has plain brick flanking pilasters and a stone lintel with ashlar cornice corbelled out above, and a boarded timber door.

The church has square-paned timber casement windows throughout and a grey slate roof. Stained glass depicts coats of arms of saints along the top row of lights to the aisle windows. The baptism of Christ is depicted in the round-arched window of the small chapel in the southwest corner. The altarpiece on the south wall is of Jesus and his suffering revealed to Margaret Mary. The parish provides a SCIAF Laudato Si Study Guide.