page_title: Church architecture in Scotland
section_title: Eighteenth-century Neo-Classicism
hierarchical_section_title: Church architecture in Scotland / Early modern era / Eighteenth-century Neo-Classicism
caption_attribution_description: St Andrew's Square in Glasgow.
context_page_description: Church architecture in Scotland incorporates all church building within the modern borders of Scotland, from the earliest Christian structures in the sixth century until the present day. The early Christian churches for which there is evidence are basic masonry-built constructions on the west coast and islands. As Christianity spread, local churches tended to remain much simpler than their English counterparts. By the eighth century more sophisticated ashlar block-built buildings began to be constructed. From the eleventh century, there were larger and more ornate Romanesque buildings, as with Dunfermline Abbey and St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney. From the twelfth century the introduction of new monastic orders led to a boom in ecclesiastical building, often using English and Continental forms. From the thirteenth century elements of the European Gothic style began to appear in Scotland, culminating in buildings such as Glasgow Cathedral and the rebuilt Melrose Abbey. Renaissance influences can be seen in a move to a low-massive style that was probably influenced by contacts with Italy and the Netherlands.
context_section_description: In the eighteenth century established patterns continued, with T-shaped churches with steeples on the long side, as at New Church, Dumfries (1724–27), and Newbattle Parish Church (1727–29). William Adam's Hamilton Parish Church (1729–32), was a Greek cross plan inscribed in a circle, while John Douglas's Killin Church (1744) was octagonal. Scots-born architect James Gibbs was highly influential on British ecclesiastical architecture. He introduced a consciously antique style in his rebuilding of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, with a massive, steepled portico and rectangular, side-aisled plan. Similar patterns in Scotland can be seen at St Andrew's in the Square (1737–59), designed by Allan Dreghorn and built by the master mason Mungo Nasmyth, and at the smaller Donibristle Chapel (completed 1731), designed by Alexander McGill. Gibbs' own design for St. Nicholas West, Aberdeen (1752–55), had the same rectangular plan, with a nave-and-aisles, barrel-vaulted layout with superimposed pedimented front. After the Toleration Act of 1712, episcopalians began building a limited number of new chapels including Alexander Jaffray's St Paul's chapel in Aberdeen (1721), the meeting house designed by McGill in Montrose, an Edinburgh chapel opened in 1722 and St Andrew's-by-the-Green in Glasgow (1750–52), which adopted a simpler version of Gibbs' pedimented rectangular plan.
  In the second half of the eighteenth century, Scotland's rapidly expanding economy and population resulted in the laying out of numerous new towns and remodelled settlements, resulting in a need for new churches to support the local residents. These included St Andrew's and St George's West Church, George Street, in the New Town of Edinburgh, designed by Andrew Frazer (1782–87), followed in the tradition of Gibbs, with an oval plan, tetrastyle Corinthian portico and a tall steeple. The builder, Alexander Stevens, probably also designed the steeple of St Cuthbert's Church (1789–90). At Fochabers, from 1776 John Baxter redesigned the village on a grid plan, with a central square focused on Bellie Church (1795–97), still following in the tradition of Gibbs, with a tetrastyle portico and steeple.
caption: St Andrew's in the Square, Glasgow, one of the first Scottish churches influenced by James Gibbs
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