St Andrew's R.C. Church, Auchendryne Square, Braemar

St Andrew's Roman Catholic Church, Braemar

St Andrew's is a Gothic Revival church dated 1839, built of squared and coursed granite rubble with an attached presbytery of 1864. The church remains in active use as a Roman Catholic place of worship and is substantially unaltered since its original construction.

The church is a 3-bay rectangular building with a symmetrical gabled entrance elevation. The south elevation features a central advanced bay with angled clasping buttresses, a 2-leaf timber entrance door, and a central panel containing a single window and a date stone inscribed 'DEO 1839'. This central feature rises over the roof apex to a gabled bellcote containing the bell. Flanking windows on this elevation are now blind. Outer buttresses rise to offset pinnacles. The west elevation is divided into 5 bays by buttresses, while the east elevation mirrors the west except for a small, low monopitched rendered addition to the north-west corner. The north elevation is symmetrical with 3 lancet windows and clasping buttresses rising to pinnacles, with a later harled gabled addition to the right.

All windows are single-light lancets filled with stained glass predominantly depicting Scottish Saints. The roof is covered in grey slates with saw-tooth skews to the north and south gables. Cast iron rainwater goods are installed throughout. A small brick stack sits midway up the roof ridge to the north gable.

The interior displays restrained decoration with Catholic elements. The entrance vestibule features a mosaic floor depicting St Andrew. A tiled central aisle (now partially covered) runs through the nave, which has timber dado with trefoil pattern and timber pews with fleur-de-lys ends. The plaster rib vaulted ceiling features gilded bosses echoing fan vaulting. An organ gallery to the south contains an openwork timber screen forming separation from the main nave. The altar is fitted with a timber panelled reredos with painted and gilded panels depicting saints. A carved timber lectern and a timber font with gilding complete the furnishings. The organ, made by Willis', was donated by Father Lovi and remains in situ and occasionally played.

The stained glass windows, gifted by James Calder and made by Louis Grosse and Co of London and Bruges, depict Scottish saints including St Bride, St Machar, St Gregory, St Columba, St Ninian, and St Nathalan, as well as Kings Malcolm Canmore and David I of Scotland and Bishops Elphinstone and Chisholm of Aberdeen. The east window depicts St Andrew to the left, the Crucifixion in the centre, and St Margaret to the right.

The presbytery is a 3-bay, 2-storey building of granite construction attached to the church by a low monopitched harled linking section. The south principal elevation features the left bay canted to both storeys, while the right bay has a piended dormer breaking the eaves. A central entrance with a 2-leaf door is topped by a gable head window breaking the eaves, which bears a Latin cross at its apex. Large gable stacks with thackstanes sit to the west and east. Timber sash and case windows on the south elevation have 4-pane configuration, while the north has 12-pane windows. Cast iron rainwater goods are installed.

The church is surrounded by boundary walls of low rubble construction on the west, south, and east sides. Decorative wrought iron gates with pedestrian openings to left and right feature octagonal standards stamped 'Harper and Co. Founders'. A lamp post with a barley sugar standard completes the boundary treatment.

This church represents an early example of pre-1840 Gothic Revival Catholic church architecture. It was constructed in an area with a significant post-Reformation Catholic community to replace an earlier Catholic chapel on Chapel Brae (now Humanae Vitae House). Building work was undertaken under the patronage of Lady Carmarthen, wife of the 7th Duke of Leeds who rented Old Mar Lodge from the Earl of Fife. The parish priest, Father Lovi, instigated and oversaw construction at a total cost of £1,126. The stone came from a quarry within 50 feet of the building site, and Father Lovi donated both the bell and the organ.