---
title: "Dunscore Church"
description: "Located in Dunscore, Dumfries & Galloway. Built 1823–24. Grade A. Gothic style."
category: "Church"
tags: ["Church","Church of Scotland","Dumfries & Galloway","Dunscore","Category A","Gothic","James Thomson"]
canonical: "https://thebritishgazette.com/post/dunscore-church-dunscore"
pubDate: "2026-09-06T01:36:30.368Z"
dateModified: "2026-09-09T12:29:49.608Z"
location: "Dunscore, Dumfries & Galloway"
country: "Scotland"
county: "Dumfries & Galloway"
town: "Dunscore"
address: "Dunscore, Dumfries & Galloway, DG2 0SZ"
postcode: "DG2 0SZ"
built: "1823–24"
architect: "James Thomson of Dumfries"
denomination: "Church of Scotland"
grade: "A"
style: "Gothic"
materials: "Rubble with painted ashlar dressings; slate roof"
website: "http://www.dunscoreheritage.org/"
openingHours: "Opening times vary throughout the year but the Dunscore Heritage Centre is open every Sunday from 2pm to 4pm."
parish: "Dunscore"
gridReference: "NX 867 843"
accessNotes: "Level access to the main areas. Level access throughout. Accessible toilets in church"
---

# Dunscore Church

Dunscore Parish Church is a Category A listed Church of Scotland kirk in Dunscore, Dumfries and Galloway, designed by James Thomson of Dumfries and built in 1823–24 on the site of an earlier ruinous kirk.

## Overview

Historic Environment Scotland records a simple rectangular-plan, three-bay buttressed Gothic church with a three-stage square tower at the west gable. The fabric is rubble-built with contrasting painted ashlar dressings and long-and-short worked dressings to doors, windows and tower quoins. Openings are hood-moulded and pointed; windows to the body have simple Y-traceried mullions with a transom at gallery level. The tower has a lintelled west doorway with traceried fanlight, offset stages, louvred belfry openings and pinnacles linked by a simple parapet. The roof is slated.

The listing is Category A for the interior fittings: a horseshoe gallery with panelled front on plain columns, and a curved pulpit below a domed sounding board supported by a pilastered and panelled back board on the west wall. The parish history states that the 1823 kirk was built for 850 worshippers at a cost of £1,072, and that an older baptismal font, once built into the wall, was reset on a stand in 1923. A heritage centre in the church commemorates Jane Haining, a Dunscore resident who died at Auschwitz while serving as a Church of Scotland matron in Budapest.

## Further Information

- [Historic Environment Scotland LB4230](https://www.trove.scot/designation/LB4230)
- [British Listed Buildings: Dunscore Parish Church](https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/200335466-dunscore-parish-church-dunscore)
- [Dunscore Parish Church history](https://dunscorechurch.org.uk/church-history/)