St Columba's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Corran Esplanade, Oban

St Columba's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Corran Esplanade, Oban

Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and built between 1935 and 1952, this modern Gothic church sits on sloping ground. The building comprises a nave and aisles, a shallow square-ended chancel, and a single short transept on the north side. A square tower with a crenellated parapet rises at the west end, flanked by an octagonal stair tower on its north side.

The external stonework is constructed of pink, stugged, squared and snecked granite with polished granite dressings and copings. The base course is battered above to the level of the aisle sills. Modillions articulate the aisle wallheads, and the nave parapet features a moulded coping. Gable ends of the aisles and transept are crowstepped with curvilinear details at the junction with the crenellations of the porches. Buttresses divide the aisle windows, while pilaster-like angle buttresses flank the tower and clasping buttresses frame the porches. The interior, furnished and formed en-suite, achieves striking verticality.

The tower displays 4-light louvered lancets on each face and a 2-light louvered lancet on the north face. A chimney and octagonal stair tower with crenellated parapet and occasional windows occupy the north side. A large triple lancet in the west elevation illuminates the baptistery.

On the south elevation, a 4-bay aisle contains a porch at its west end with a moulded entrance doorway set behind a pointed arch, niche, and crenellated parapet above. Bays 2 to 5 are lit by 4-light diamond-paned leaded lancets, while 2 lancets with trefoil tracery at the east end illuminate the chancel.

The east elevation displays a gable end to the nave and chancel with buttresses set back from the corners, a moulded cope stepped at the corners, and a carved cross at the apex.

The north elevation, facing Corran Brae, comprises a 7-bay aisle with buttresses between bays. A porch at the west end of the aisle features a step-moulded entrance doorway set behind a pointed arch, with niche and crenellated parapet above. 4-light diamond-paned leaded lancets light the bays, with sill heights of the outer bays stepping up to follow the street level. A lancet window with trefoil tracery at the east end illuminates the chancel.

The west elevation, facing Corran Esplanade, displays small stair arrowslits and bipartite windows on the first and second floors of the porches, finished with diamond-paned leaded glazing, and a plinth at ground level. The roof is of grey slate at varying pitches for the aisles, nave, and transept, with a terracotta ridge to the transept. Cast-iron gutters and downpipes drain into buttresses, while nave parapet gutters are drained by lead spouts to the aisle roofs and the tower by spouts through the east parapet into hoppers.

Internally, the stonework comprises a base course of squared and snecked pink granite with stugged, squared and snecked grey granite above. Columns and dressings are of pink droved granite. Heavy wooden doors with good ironmongery lead through a square entrance porch containing an enclosed stair tower in its corner; the font is set into a window sill.

The nave features a 6-bay arcade to the south aisle and a 7-bay arcade to the north aisle. The nave arcade columns have octagonal bases, circular shafts, and square capitals supporting pointed arches with flat soffits. An open timber roof comprises 9 trusses supporting purlins, the trusses themselves supported on small, plain corbels. Aisle windows are expressed internally as a grid pattern of mullions, cills, and lintels, creating a strong impression of verticality. Carved timber relief stations of the cross are positioned between the windows. Ogee-arched entrance doors occupy the southwest, northwest, and southeast corners of the nave.

The baptistery in the base of the tower contains a contemporary pink granite baptismal font with a copper cover and connects to the nave through a large pointed arch.

The chancel features a curvilinear-arched piscina with shelf and projecting bowl in the south wall, canons' stalls, an original altar with sacrament house, and a reredos with a carved stone frame, decorated timber panel, and canopy. An altar screen of two courses of granite surmounted by a timber rail stands before the sanctuary. The pulpit is integral with the base of the south choir screen column.

A lady chapel contains a reredos with doors in front of a granite arcaded organ screen and an altar of geometrically patterned sandstones in different colours. A square lintelled piscina occupies the southeast corner.

The sacred heart chapel features a timber canopy shaped as a pitched roof with a carved dove suspended from the ceiling, and a polished ashlar altar with a marble top and square recess in the southeast corner.

A low, integral boundary wall extends along the north and south sides of the tower base.