The massive, cathedral-like St Mary's Chapel is part of the former Blairs College Roman Catholic seminary. The college complex, encorporating several phases of building and a very large site, closed in the 1980s but the chapel remains open for regular services and for visitors. A small museum and tea room is open throughout the year, and displays some of the College's Catholic art collection, including medieval vestments and the memorial portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. The college and chapel are built in the former estate lands of John Menzies of Pitfodels who donated the estate to the Catholic Church. The site is in open countryside, close to the banks of the River Dee and set amongst former park land with avenues of trees and straight-edged fields.
St Mary's Chapel was built as part of a new range for the college, using generous funding by Major Lennon of Liverpool. The chapel is built onto the U-plan range of New College, built from 1898. The chapel itself, to the east of the college, was started in 1899 with Robert Curran as architect.
Exterior
The chapel consists of a large nave with south aisle or cloister, tall three-stage tower and spire, north transept, entrance porch and west chancel. It was built with large blocks of granite and sandstone is used for dressings and window tracery, which contrasts with the grey granite. The roofs are slated and feature bands of decorative fish scale slates and different shades of slates. There are also decorative red ridge tiles and the original cast iron rain water goods survive.
The tower at the north-east corner has three stages and a tall stone spire. There are diminishing corner buttresses and three string courses that continue around all faces. The main entrance into the nave of the church is through a recessed, pointed-arch doorway in the north face of the tower. There are flanking round columns with foliage capitals, which support the arch over the door. Above the door is a tall niche with canopy in which is a statue of Mary with the infant Christ. The belfry stage of the tower has a pointed-arch window on each face with simple tracery. There is a crenellated parapet at the top of the tower with large corner pinnacles. The octagonal stone spire has large dormered openings (lucarnes) and an intricate metal weather vane.
The nave has closely-spaced pointed-arch windows with simple tracery. Slender buttresses with gabled pinnacles stand inbetween the windows. The wallhead is crenellated and projected slightly on corbels. The south elevation has a single-storey side aisle or cloister with buttresses and small trefoil-headed windows in each bay. A south-facing projecting gabled porch with a large pointed-arch doorway gives access to the cloister and museum complex to the west. The east gable of the nave has a single very large pointed-arch window with intersecting stone tracery. There is a slender hoodmould around the window and above the window, in the gablehead, is a small niche with hoodmould. The gable top has a Celtic cross finial.
The projecting north transept has the same wallhead height and roof line as the nave. There are two stringcourses on the side walls and pinnacled corner buttresses. The gable of the transept has a large pointed-arch window with tracery, supported on a sill course. The hoodmould and gablehead niche match those in the east gable.
The chancel at the west end of the chapel has five sides, each with a pointed-arch window and divided by slender buttresses. The roof is hipped or piended and joins the nave roof.
Interior
The ornate interior is large and spacious. The nave is smaller than the choir, which was designed to be very large so as to accomodate all of the college's boys. The original wooden choir pews or stalls are in place, but the pews in the nave have been removed to make the space more usable today. The transept holds the large pipe organ. The interior had to stripped back within ten years of completion when extensive woodworm was discoverd. This was when large marble panels of different stone types were inserted. They cover most of the internal wall spaces as well as the choir floor.
The chancel has very ornate decoration, including intricate wooden carving which contrasts with the marble walls and floor. The wood features in the exuberant altar canopy (baldacchino), the Bishop's chairs and surrounds the statues of the saints. The wooden pulpit is small but has a figure of Christ carved in relief. The stone altar has a carved frieze of The Last Supper and it is framed by a marble reredos behind. The chancel has fine stained glass windows by Mayer of Munich.
The choir and nave is less intricate than the chancel, which is the focal point of the chapel. The timber ceiling, supported on stone corbels, contrasts with the polished marble wall panels and the floor of the choir and nave is also of wood. The walls of the choir and nave have large panels depicting the Stations of The Cross, which describe the crucifixion of Christ. There are also a number of painted statues of Mary and Christ.
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