Roman Catholic Church Of The Annunciation, Aird Street, Portsoy

The Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation, located on Aird Street in Portsoy, was designed by Charles Dawson in 1829 and features a Gothick style. The building is rectangular with a three-bay south entrance gable that is adorned with pilasters. The exterior is harled with tooled and polished ashlar dressings. The wide giant pilasters on the west front divide it into three bays and act as buttresses, diminishing slightly in stepped stages to a crenellated wallhead, where they project as pulvinated pinnacles. The central entrance is pointed-headed and features a renewed studded plank door, with a blind pointed-head window above it. There are similarly shaped windows flanking the entrance and a light gallery in the outer first-floor bays. The long west elevation is lit by three pointed-headed windows, each retaining hooks for former shutters. The multi-pane timber sash windows have intersecting astragals at the apex, reflecting a leaded pattern applied inside. The east elevation has a single blind window, with a presbytery abutting to the right. A simple semi-circular apse, added in 1925, projects at the north gable, which is the liturgical east.

The church has a simple finial at the east gable and a cross finial at the west, topped with a slate roof.

Inside, the church was renovated in 1938 and features a simple galleried interior, with the gallery accessible by a circular wooden stair near the entrance. In the apse, there is an original marble altar with engaged columns and a blind traceried front, positioned below a later panelled and pilaster painted wooden canopy that includes painted detailing of a bishop's mitre in gold and crimson. A modern veneered altar is advanced in the chancel, which is enclosed by a canted wooden communion rail, with each section divided by engaged columns and infilled with gilded carvings that depict grapes, a monstrance, chalice, ciborium, and censer.

The church is fronted by a low rubble wall with spearhead railings.