St Andrew's Episcopal Church, Fasque

St Andrew's Episcopal Church, Fasque

This well-detailed Early English and Early Decorated Episcopal chapel was built for Sir John Gladstone by Edinburgh architect John Henderson in 1846-47, with a chancel added in 1867 and further alterations by Alexander Ross, Alexander Ross and Son, and John Alistair Ross between 1907 and 1923. The chapel includes a crypt and was consecrated by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, on 28 August 1847.

The building comprises a three-bay buttressed nave of rectangular plan with a vestry forming a T-projection to the north, and a lower gabled chancel to the east. A cusped bellcote sits at the west gable. The exterior is constructed of ashlar with long and short work quoins, a raked base course, and string courses forming cill courses with continuous hooded moulding and eaves courses. Two-stage buttresses, diagonal at the angles, support the walls. The windows are traceried with stone mullions, chamfered reveals and raked cills. Boarded timber doors feature decorative ironwork. The roof is covered in small grey slates with ashlar-coped skews and moulded skewputts.

The west elevation displays the bellcote-gabled entrance with a two-leaf door in a moulded doorway beneath a double lancet window with quatrefoil under a stepped course forming a hoodmould. The chancel to the east has a stepped triple lancet window under a string course hoodmould and a blind trefoil in a finalled gablehead. Single lancet windows punctuate the north and south elevations. The windows contain figurative coloured glass with diamond and square leaded glazing patterns, some with decorative glass and borders. Cast iron square-section downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings, and decorative ironwork ventilator grilles, complete the external detail.

The interior retains much of its original scheme. The nave features panelled dadoes, fixed timber pews, and a hammerbeam-type roof with early suspended light fittings. A side arch at the north-east, with the organ, leads to the vestry. The chancel arch has stop-chamfering and opens into the chancel with flanking choir stalls, carved altar rails, and a decoratively tiled floor. Blind arcading adorns the dado, and a hammerbeam roof crowns the space. The interior walls of the nave are finished in Caen stone.

The chapel contains numerous family monuments. A large high relief semicircular-arched marble stone on the north wall depicts Sir John Gladstone and his second wife Ann Robertson almost life-size. The west window commemorates Robert Gladstone (died 1835). The chancel, consecrated on 15 April 1869 by Bishop Alexander Penrose Forbes, was built in 1867 to commemorate Sir John's younger brother, John Neilson Gladstone, who died at sea in 1863. A brass plaque in Latin records this dedication. The chancel's east window depicts St Andrew with the Evangelists' symbols. Memorial windows flanking the altar depict choirs of angels and commemorate Louisa and Anna, who died in London in 1885. The daughter of Sir William Ewart Gladstone, Catherine Jessie Gladstone, is buried within the chapel. The organ was specifically built for Fasque by Fred Hamilton of Edinburgh and operated on very low wind pressure, supplied with two barrels each containing 14 tunes for use when no organist was present. The west window depicting "Our Lord in Blessing" was damaged at some point, and the baby's head was imported from another window. Three former Rectors are buried in the graveyard outside.

Sir John Gladstone gifted the chapel to the Diocese of Brechin while reserving certain rights for himself and his family. The chapel served as a place of family burial, with at least eight coffins recorded in the vault. Worshippers approached the chapel by different paths according to social position, with estate servants using the less ornate route.

The chapel is situated within the finely landscaped Fasque Estate, with the foothills of the Grampians rising behind and rolling parkland to the front, a short distance to the east of Fasque House (1809-13). It remains in active use as a place of worship.

John Henderson, born at Brechin in 1804, worked for several years as an assistant in the office of Thomas Hamilton before establishing his practice in 1835. He became the foremost architect of Tractarian Gothic in Scotland, working on many ecclesiastical commissions including Trinity College, Glenalmond, St Mary's Episcopal Church, Dunblane, and Burntisland Town Hall. He may have also been the architect who worked at Fasque House in 1845-50. St Andrew's is an important example of his work and demonstrates his characteristic refined Early English style with its high-quality largely unaltered interior.