Presbytery, Roman Catholic Church, Institution Road, Fochabers is a Grade B listed building in the Moray local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 24 March 1988. Church, presbytery.
Presbytery, Roman Catholic Church, Institution Road, Fochabers
- WRENN ID
- nether-soffit-sage
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- Moray
- Constituency
- Aberdeenshire North and Moray East MP: Seamus Logan (SNP)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 24 March 1988
- Type
- Church, presbytery
- OS grid reference
- NJ 346 586
- Coordinates
- 57.61289, -3.09531
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
The Presbytery of the Roman Catholic Church on Institution Road in Fochabers was designed by J Gillespie Graham between 1826 and 1828, following a design by Bishop James Kyle. An addition to the chancel was made around 1905. This rectangular Gothic building is oriented north-south, featuring a south gabled entrance front. The facade is made of tooled ashlar, with mixed rubble flanks and tooled and polished ashlar dressings.
The main south gable front has a central bay defined by stepped buttresses that rise to panelled, gabletted pinnacles topped with stiff-leaf finials. These are connected at the wallhead by a pierced balustrade, and there is a finial at the apex of the gable. The wide pointed-headed entrance, which has a modern door, is complemented by a large perpendicular three-light traceried window above, with two similarly detailed two-light windows in the flanking bays. The wallhead is crenellated, and the windows feature lattice-pane glazing. The east elevation has two tall geometric tracery windows. The north gable features a canted chancel added around 1905, which includes paired hoodmoulded windows with curvilinear tracery. The building is topped with slate roofs.
Inside, the church has an aisless interior with a shallow pointed ceiling supported by clustered columns that extend across the ceiling as ribs. There is a cusped panelled front to the gallery at the south. The altar, made of carved marble and ornately carved with pinnacles, dates from 1900, as do the Stations of the Cross.
The Presbytery itself is a mid-19th century two-storey and attic dwelling that has a long east elevation abutting the church wall and a regular three-bay south entrance gable. It is constructed of mixed rubble with tooled ashlar dressings. The entrance is off-centre, flanked by windows, with two first-floor windows above, all set under relieving arches. The building features single canted dormer windows with varied glazing and has coped end stacks and slate roofs.
Local climate
Presbytery, Roman Catholic Church, Institution Road, Fochabers sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 980 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 78% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 58% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 20 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 79% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- Flood risk assessment
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