Carnbee Parish Church, Carnbee

Heritage listing

Category B Date Added 01/03/1984 Local Authority Fife Planning Authority Fife Parish Carnbee NGR NO 53169 06550 Coordinates 353169, 706550 — Built 1793-4. Simple rectangular-plan 6-bay church with low session house to west. Rubble-built with ashlar margins. 4 tall, round-headed windows with simple Y-tracery, square-headed door to each outer bay of long south wall: single small opening only on north wall. Segmental-arched window on west gable below tiny blind oculus and re-used birdcage bellcote with tall pyramidal curved roof, taken from earlier church building. Piend-roofed low vestry, built 1838, has door to west elevation, window to south. Slate roofs. Interior: seating plan altered before 1908, and gallery on east wall only remains. Church re-opened 1908 following alterations by Sir Robert Lorimer, architect; simple oak-panelled dado against west wall with central pulpit, carved with figures and with vine & grape decoration above carving by Clow brothers, Edinburgh. Oak font, also designed by Lorimer, and carved by William Wheeler Jnr of Arncroach. Stained glass window in west wall inserted after 1886. 2 sets of Heraldic arms hang in gallery, those of Henry Bethune of Kilconquhar (dated 1787) and those of the 1st Earl of Kellie. Churchyard enclosed by rubble-built walls with square-plan ashlar gatepiers. — Most references give 1793 as the date of erection, but the Heritors Records show that building could barely have begun by December of that year. Building Contractors were Andrew Horsburgh Wright in Pittenweem and David Ness mason in Ovenstone. Advertisement for tenders in Edinburgh Courant, Aug 22. 1793. Original seating plan by Alexander Leslie of Largo, architect (who was also works surveyor) with gallery against either short wall and Kellie gallery central. Ecc

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.