Otsteps – part 1

feet, with a porch and small organ chamber. Built to accommodate 600 people, it was thought to have been one of the largest iron churches ever built.

This gem was lit by 50 windows of Gothic design, glazed with green-tinted cathedral glass. The outer walls were covered with galvanised corrugated iron painted in oil colours. Those inside were lined with inodorous felt to match the boarding which was stained and varnished in light and dark oak colours. The roofs were lined of the same materials.

The benefactors were the Marquess and Marchioness of Bute – the UK’s leading 19thcentury philanthropists, who bank-rolled numerous church buildings including St Edward’s on the Island of Canna.

John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, was baptised as an Anglican, but while studying at Oxford in 1866 abandoned Presbyterianism in favour of Catholicism believing that the Roman Catholic Church was the true Church as it had not been corrupted by reformation.

The Butes planned the interior according to their liturgical preferences and artistic taste and he who pays the piper ensured the furnishings were equally fine.

The Blessed Sacrament was reserved in a side chapel beautifully adorned for private devotion and adoration. The high altar and sanctuary, places of sacrifice and ritual worship, were separated from the nave by an ornate rood-screen, surmounted by a triptych – a work of art divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open.

The pro-cathedral, The Oban Times reported, ‘was built in such a high way, it is as good an advertisement for the builders, who have performed their part with great satisfaction and who have been represented here by Mr Henry Sidell’. ‘Quietly and unostentatiously’, it went on, ‘the Roman Catholics are growing apace all over the West Highlands and Islands and especially in Oban. This is in some measure due to the labours of Bishop MacDonald [Angus, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles 1878-1892 who was succeeded by George Smith] of whom it can be said there is not a more devoted prelate, as well as a thoroughly Christian man, in the country. We congratulate the Roman Catholics of Oban on their exceedingly pretty church, so much in keeping with its magnificent natural surroundings.’

Continued next week.