Commendation for best conversion
Church house
Rhynd is a hamlet in Perth and Kinross, lying between Elcho Castle on the River Tay and Moncreiffe Hill, four miles south-east of Perth. Its Tudor-Gothic Presbyterian church was designed in 1842 by William Mackenzie, a Perth architect who also designed two buildings in nearby Kinnaird: the old village school and Delford House, which was originally the manse.
Rhynd Church replaced an earlier church whose ruins can be seen at Easter Rhynd, where the Tay meets the Earn, but the Victorian church closed in 2001, and a team ministry now serves the three parishes of Rhynd, Craigend (whose church was demolished to make way for a motorway) and Moncreiffe (whose 1950s parish church now serves all three congregations),
Apart from the church, Rhynd has a Post Office and a few cottages, but its most notable structure is Scotland’s only working K3 red telephone kiosk, designed by Sir Giles Scott in 1929. Now, after standing empty for three years, the church has been given a new life by being converted into a private house
designed by Davis Duncan Architects.
The exterior of the church is largely unaltered, but internally it has been divided into two levels, with four bedrooms on the ground floor and the living area on the upper floor, which is reached by an open-tread staircase within a glass enclosure. The two principal bedrooms have ensuite bathrooms, the other two have pivoting walls, which can be opened up to provide a large open space at the entrance.
The semi open-plan arrangement of the upper level has the living room on one side of the stairs and the kitchen/dining room on the other. The living room has an inset fireplace and the storage units that function as walls are not full-height, which allows the original arched ceilings to remain intact. Glazing
above the double doors to the family room allows the arch to continue visually throughout the upper level.
Throughout the upper level the windows continue to floor level, allowing views over Rhynd and the surrounding farmland. New double-glazed units with low-profile steel frames have been introduced sympathetically, and two new openings have been added to the east elevation to provide an emergency escape
from the family room and a window to Bedroom 4.
This skilful restoration and conversion of Rhynd Church has enabled it to be seen once again as the most important building in the hamlet, with little indication that it is now a house. Inside, the architects have created a modern interior without destroying the essential characteristics of the church. The wooden floors used throughout have given it warmth and colour, which contrasts well with the crisp white of the storage units
HomeBuilder : J S TAYLOR
15 Gray Street, Perth PH2 0JL
Tel 01738 627385
Architects: DAVIS DUNCAN ARCHITECTS
20 Royal Crescent, Glasgow G3 7SL
Tel 0141 333 0594 Fax 0141 332 7549
Contact: Calum MacCalman, Director
Photography : KEITH HUNTER (0141 886 4503)
and ANDREW LEE (0141 445 3799)