St Cuthbert, Dalmeny

Dalmeny Kirk, or St Cuthbert’s, is a Category A listed Church of Scotland parish church on Main Street, Dalmeny, west of Edinburgh. It is among the most complete Romanesque churches in Scotland.

Overview

Historic Environment Scotland records an early twelfth-century church with seventeenth-century additions: a three-bay nave, a three-stage square west tower, a single-storey chancel and stilted apse stepping down to the east, and the Rosebery aisle to the north, forming a T-plan. Walls are squared and droved sandstone ashlar with stugged and polished dressings. The south doorway has elaborately carved voussoirs of zodiacal and bestiary figures, grotesque heads and an Agnus Dei, with a blind intersecting arcade above. The interior is rib-vaulted, with Romanesque arches, scalloped and chevroned capitals, and medieval graveslabs in the chancel and apse floors.

Scotland’s Churches Trust dates the core to about 1130. The Rosebery aisle was built in 1671, rebuilt in the early nineteenth century and restored in 1937. Alfred Greig built the west tower in 1937 on the foundations of a demolished earlier tower. Furnishings include a timber pulpit by H. O. Tarbolton (1928), a stone font by Ian G. Lindsay (1950) and three apse lights by Lalia Dickson (1942). Scottish listing is Category A; the official designation is on the Historic Environment Scotland portal, not Historic England or Cadw.

Further Information

• Historic Environment Scotland LB5570
• Dalmeny and Queensferry Parish Church