St Drostan's Episcopal Church, Tarfside

St Drostan's Episcopal Church, Tarfside

St Drostan's Church is an Episcopal Church built in 1878–9 in the 'Early English' style. It was designed by James Matthews and Alexander Marshall Mackenzie of Aberdeen and constructed in Aberdeen-bond granite. The church was built by Lord Forbes in memory of his brother, Alexander Penrose Forbes, Bishop of Brechin, replacing an earlier Episcopal chapel that stood on the site from 1810. It was the fourth Episcopal Church to have been built in the vicinity of Tarfside.

The church has an aisleless nave with corner buttressing, a vestry and rounded apse at the east end, and a porch at the west end. A granite Latin cross mounted over the porch derives from the east gable of the predecessor 1810 building. Wrought iron crosses and a stone cross are mounted on the ridge line. The bell is hung at a high level within a corbelled, semi-conical bellcote within the apex of the west gable. The interior features a marble-columned altar, an octagonal stone font, plain white walls, and an exposed king-post truss roof structure. Three lancet windows in the apse contain coloured glass depicting Christ, St Andrew and St Peter. A former organ chamber is located in the apse chancel.

The site contains a two-storey, three-bay former parsonage dating from 1810, which was substantially remodelled and extended in 1880–81 to designs by Reverend Edward Sugden. The parsonage has a slightly lower rear wing to the north and an adjoining stable and coach house, forming an elongated L-plan. A detached laundry/washhouse stands to the east and a former byre/store outbuilding to the west.

The front (south) elevation of the parsonage is of roughly coursed whinstone and granite with reddish grey sandstone ashlar dressings. A pair of projecting window bays projects from the ground floor, flanking a timber door to the centre with a slate-roofed porch recess featuring decorative timber supports. Above are a pair of gablet dormer windows flanking a central cat-slide dormer, which break the overhanging eaves. The gable-end chimney stacks have decorative dentil cornicing and clay cans to both front and rear sections. The roofs are covered in grey slate. The lower wing and stable block to the rear have shouldered skewputt gables. The windows are modern uPVC replacements installed after 2000.

The entrance hall contains a timber staircase with barley-twist bannisters. All principal rooms have timber or metal fireplaces flanked by wired bell-pulls. A row of wall-mounted service bells is located in the rear wing. The kitchen in the rear wing incorporates a corbelled stone fireplace surviving from the earlier 1810 parsonage.

The adjoining stable and coach block has a cart entrance to the west elevation with a relieving-arch opening and an upper hayloft with a hoist door breaking the eaves line. The lower section has cobbled floors with drainage channels, octagonal timber stall posts, and bridle hooks. A small lean-to outshot adjoining to the east of the stable block, possibly a dairy or larder, has niches in the wall and a flag stone floor. The detached laundry/washhouse has a modern metal sheet roof covering (circa 2010), a circular heated stone wash basin, and terracotta brick tile flooring. A detached store and former byre with a slated roof stands to the west of the stable block.

The site is bounded by low rubble stone walls with saddle-back coping stones. Gatepiers with pointed capstones stand to the south wall, with further vehicular openings and rubble piers to the east and north.

The parsonage was last used as accommodation for the local parson in 1921. In the 1930s the building was leased. Changes in the late 20th to early 21st century include replacement of windows with uPVC and a metal roof covering to the laundry/washhouse.

The former schoolhouse, located to the west of the church and parsonage and dating from around 1850, is a simple single-storey rectangular plan building with lean-to outshots at the gables. It is excluded from the listing. Extensions in 1983 and 2002 created an L-plan hostel/retreat, more than doubling the footprint. The building ceased to function as a school around 1870 due to population decline in Glenesk, and was later leased by the church for residential purposes until around 1980. It is now used as holiday accommodation.

A steading range to the west, also excluded from the listing, appears to relate to a detached farmhouse. It is of standard planform and construction with no special features for its age and building type. The altered, partly ruinous remains of a U-plan steading range of whin and sandstone construction, visible on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1864, lay beyond the north boundary wall of the church site and is understood to have had historical associations with the Episcopal Church, providing stabling for travelling members of the congregation, though it was principally related to the detached farmhouse to the west. The building is now disused.