Monastery and School, Fort Augustus Abbey

The Abbey buildings at Fort Augustus incorporate the earlier military fort, constructed between 1729 and 1742. The Abbey itself was built in phases between 1876 and 1980, designed by Peter Paul Pugin and Joseph Hanson, father and son.

The Abbey consists of large, mainly three-storey ranges constructed of grey rubble stone with contrasting tooled ashlar sandstone dressings, arranged around a cloistered square. The west entrance front is a tall, two-storey building with a double attic, arranged symmetrically. A wide, gabled central bay projects forward, housing a stairwell, flanked on each side by three narrow bays. The first floor of these bays is lit by tall, four-light flat-headed windows with cusped and traceried detailing, incorporating single side lights. A projecting single-storey porch/corridor, oversailing the former fort moat, fronts the stairwell.

The east garden front features a long, asymmetrical, three-storey and attic building with nine bays, advanced and gabled outer bays, and a seven-stage, part five-stage tower designed by Peter Paul Pugin. The tower has a variety of stepped stairs and Gothic windows, crowned by a pyramidal roof. A round-headed entrance is located at the base of the tower.

The cloister, designed by Peter Paul Pugin in 1880, surrounds the central square. It displays Geometric Gothic tracery in each opening and a wall-head parapet with continuous quatrefoil detailing. The cloister is vaulted and paved with geometric tiles.

The school building has an irregular, three-storey north elevation, with a central tower rising seven stages. The tower features an open porch at its base and oriel windows on the first and second floors. A heavily corbelled crenellated parapet extends around three sides of the tower, within which rises an octagonal crenellated clock tower with clock faces on four sides, above louvred round-headed openings. A circular stair turret is positioned at the southeast. Wide, gabled bays flank the tower, with ground and first floor windows linked in vertical panels, more elaborate on the left side. The windows are varied, some mullioned and transomed, others with cusped detailing in the upper lights, and generally contain two-pane glazing. Tall coped ridge stacks rise from the steeply pitched slate roofs, which exhibit contrasting bands of differing slates and apex cross finials.

A triangular military fort bastion remains at the northeast angle, featuring a tall rubble wall with a pulvinated string course and a former angle bartizan replaced by a square stack.

The interior of the Abbey was not inspected. A Roman stone sculptured slab, approximately 21 inches long and 19 inches high, depicting a relief of three ‘Mother Goddesses’, is set into a wall in a high-ceilinged entrance passage of the monastery, over the door to a small meeting room. This slab was moved from Hailes House, Colinton, in 1925.