Extract from Scotland's Best Churches

Well known, almost notorious, for its architectural elaboration and supposed secrets, Rosslyn could not be omitted from this volume. It was built for William Sinclair, third Earl or Orkney from 1450, and was never finished - what we see is the choir of a church which would have been almost cathedral-like in scale. It was probably originally intended to have a timber roof (or a stone-slab one) over its vault. The exposed vault has proved less than waterproof, threatening damage to the elaborate decoration within, on virtually every surface. It has been described as 'wedding cake' decoration, but I see it as more like Christmas cake - rich to the point of indigestibility. It is worth seeing simply as an example of decoration run riot, a marked contrast to the relative simplicity of most Scots Gothic. It has been suggested that the decoration is inspired by the Maneuline architecture of Spain and Portugal, but the chronology is wrong. As I write, the building is still protected by a temporary roof, installed to allow the vault to dry out, pending a long-term conservation solution.

Now known as Oakshaw Trinity Church, as a result of a series of unions with other churches, the building of this church, originally known as the High Kirk, was undertaken when the adapted nave of the Abbey could no longer cope with the expanding population of Paisley, which was a booming textile town. The church was built on a broad rectangular plan in 1756, without any internal supports for the roof, which had, it is said, the largest span in Scotland at the time. It had a horse-shoe gallery from the start. Like the near-contemporary Mid Kirk at Greenock (see below), it was built without a tower or spire. The Paisley clock tower and spire were added in 1770, at the expense of the town council. The tower is of a curiously old-fashioned design, redolent of the Merchants' Steeple in Glasgow of nearly a century earlier, but the spire was very up-to-date, with glazed oval openings in its cardinal faces. The interior was completely remodelled in 1877 in an opulently Victorian style, with an elaborate ceiling rose, from which presumably a large gasolier was originally suspended. After the amalgamation which created Oakshaw Trinity, the shell of the building was repair, and the interior refurbished and to an extend modernised, in the early 1990s. Perhaps, when the dust of integration has settled, the original descriptive and dignified name of the church might be restored in the future.

This is another Gillespie Graham building, this time in 'Village Church' mode, but on an unusually large scale and cruciform, a rarity in a church of this period and character. In replaced in 1818-21 the ruins of the thirteenth-century choir, transepts and crossing of the abbey church, abandoned after the Reformation (see Dunfermline Abbey above). Its most distinctive feature is the incorporation in the parapet of the tower of the words 'KING ROBERT THE BRUCE', reflecting the fact that the Bruce's tomb is in the church, under the pulpit. Besides the vigour of the Romanesque nave of he Abbey and its massive, later buttresses (see above), Gillespie graham's design looks weaker than it actually is. Internally, the unusual height of the building is evident. The height was necessary to give the building a significant presence besides the Abbey nave. The ceiling is plaster-vaulted, in a rather thin and unconvincing manner. The choir was refurbished in 1890 by Sir R. Rowand Anderson, who was also responsible for the present scheme of decoration, executed in 1905. On the north wall of the north transept is the Magistrates' Pew of 1610. There is something vaguely unsatisfying about the worship space, hardly redeemed by some good twentieth-century stained glass, but the building sits well in its graveyard setting.