Lych Gate, St Thomas's Episcopal Church, Ballater Road, Aboyne

St Thomas's Episcopal Church, Ballater Road, Aboyne

St Thomas's Episcopal Church was designed by the architectural practice Fryers and Penman of Largs and constructed between 1907 and 1909. It is a Gothic church built in lightly tooled grey granite ashlar, finely finished to margins, featuring cusped tracery and a half-engaged square-plan four-stage tower.

The church sits on a base-course and displays pointed-arched openings with curvilinear tracery throughout. The reveals are chamfered, and hood moulds and angle buttresses provide decorative and structural definition. An eaves cornice runs around the building.

The north elevation, which serves as the entrance, is asymmetrical and comprises five bays with the tower recessed to the outer right. Three bays to the right are advanced, with a flat gabled entrance bay projecting to the centre. The deeply chamfered doorway is flanked to the right by a stone wall piscina with canopy. Iron-work gates lead to the porch, which contains a two-leaf boarded timber door decorated with strapwork hinges. Small windows flank the entrance to left and right returns, and a stone crucifix marks the apex of the gable. Two-light traceried windows appear in the flanking bays to left and right, while flat-arched three-light trefoil-headed windows appear to left and right returns. A small window sits above the base course in the penultimate bay to the left, with another window to the centre of the bay at the outer left.

The west elevation is asymmetrical and comprises two bays.

The tower is three-stage with an octagonal spire set in the bay to the left. A tall lancet window appears to the first stage, with a window to the left return of the second stage. Bipartite windows occupy the left and right returns of the third stage. Carved grotesques support a pierced corniced parapet, and gableted bipartite louvred openings appear to each face of the spire. An ironwork weathervane finial crowns the spire. A flat-arched bipartite trefoil-headed window sits in the flanking bay to the right.

The south elevation is asymmetrical and comprises six bays. A gabled penultimate bay to the right contains a lancet window to the centre. A boarded timber door with strapwork hinges, reached by four stone steps and flanked by a small lancet window to the right return, provides secondary access. Three bipartite traceried windows appear in the flanking bays to the left of the south aisle, with three diamond-pane windows lighting the clerestory. A boarded timber door with strapwork hinges reached by two stone steps opens to the vestry in the bay to the outer left. A recessed chancel occupies the outer right, with a trefoil-headed lancet set off-centre to the left.

The east elevation is single-bay and symmetrical, forming a flat-gabled chancel. The centrepiece is a five-light decorative stained glass traceried window by William Morris and Company. A foundation stone centred below reads "THIS STONE WAS LAID BY MARGARET LOTHIAN COATS OF GLEN TANAR. SEPTEMBER 30TH 1907". A stone cross crowns the apex.

The interior is entered through the porch on the north side. The roof is shallow-pitched and compartmental, constructed in timber with decorative king posts carried on carved stone label stops. The chancel to the east contains a carved oak Gothic choir stalls, pulpit, and altar table. A carved stone font sits in the nave. Pointed-arched arcades open to the north and south aisles, with a chapel to the east of the north aisle. A pointed-arched opening to the west of the nave leads to the vestry, where bell pulls remain in place. A Carrara marble memorial sculpture to the west of the south aisle is a reproduction by Percy Portsmouth of the Carpaneto Monument by Scanzi. An organ is housed within an arched recess to the east of the south aisle.

Decorative stained glass windows dating from the sixteenth century are distributed throughout the church. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

To the south of the church stands a boiler house, an octagonal structure with vertically boarded rustic timber walls on a granite base. Three window openings have been blocked. A boarded timber door to the west is flanked by stone steps descending to a basement. A rectangular wing projects to the south. The roof is covered in grey slate.

The boundary features include an open timber-framed two-leaf lych gate with a slate roof. Battered granite gatepiers are positioned at the entrance, and battered granite rubble boundary walls extend to the north, south, east, and west.