Our Lady and St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church and Presbytery

Our Lady and St Andrew’s is Galashiels’ only Roman Catholic church: a commanding Gothic Revival landmark shaped by the town’s industrial growth, the Hope-Scott family of Abbotsford and several notable Victorian designers.

Last reviewed: 15 July 2026.

Quick Facts

A Catholic Mission for a Growing Town

The church belongs to the period in which Galashiels was expanding rapidly as a textile-manufacturing town. Industrial growth brought a larger and more varied population, including a substantial Catholic community that needed a permanent place of worship. The Archdiocese dates the foundation of the parish to 1852.

The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate record that a temporary chapel, seating about 200 people, opened on 9 January 1853. A school was also established on the site. The chapel soon proved too small, and adjoining ground was acquired for a much more ambitious church. This early chapel-and-school phase is important: the present building did not appear in isolation, but developed from organised worship, education and pastoral work within the growing town.

The Hope-Scott Connection

The project was supported by James Robert Hope-Scott and his wife Charlotte of Abbotsford. Charlotte was Sir Walter Scott’s granddaughter and surviving direct descendant; James was a lawyer, a prominent figure in the Oxford Movement and, like Charlotte, a convert to Roman Catholicism in 1851. It is therefore more accurate to describe James as Scott’s grandson-in-law than as his descendant.

Abbotsford’s own account identifies Our Lady and St Andrew’s as the most important of the churches and schools that Hope-Scott supported in the Borders and Highlands. It quotes his satisfaction with the church’s massive, lofty shell in December 1857, while also recognising that work remained to be done. The building was completed in stages, and Hope-Scott lived to see the principal later work finished shortly before his death in 1873.

The patronage links the church to a wider network of nineteenth-century Catholic renewal, philanthropy and education. It also gives Galashiels an unusually direct architectural connection with Abbotsford’s later family history.

William Wardell’s Church

William Wilkinson Wardell designed the main church in 1856-58. Wardell was closely influenced by A. W. N. Pugin and became an important Gothic Revival architect. Our Lady and St Andrew’s belongs to the last phase of his British career before he emigrated to Australia in 1858.

HES describes a seven-bay basilican-plan church with a monolithic, strongly massed character. The south entrance front is arranged as a five-arched blind arcade, with doors in the outer arches. Above it rises a large curvilinear-traceried window, a smaller rose window in the gable and shouldered octagonal corner turrets capped in ashlar.

The east elevation has tall pointed clerestory windows and five low, copper-roofed side chapels set between buttresses. Coursed rubble walls are enriched with smooth sandstone margins, moulded string courses and shaped hood moulds. These details bring refinement to a building whose overall effect depends on height, solidity and a commanding silhouette.

Completion by Goldie & Childe

The church opened in 1858 but was not yet complete. HES records an extended phase from 1866 to 1872 by Goldie & Childe, a practice with extensive experience of Roman Catholic church design. The work included completion towards the west and the organ gallery. The pulpit and altar rails were added in 1870, and HES records the addition of the Lady Chapel and St Patrick’s Chapel in 1873.

These dates are best understood as overlapping stages rather than contradictory completion years. The church could be opened and used in 1858 while its architectural composition, chapels and furnishings continued to develop into the early 1870s.

Interior and Furnishings

The interior is central to the building’s significance. A timber-lined collar-beam roof is carried on stone shafts rising through the clerestory. Pointed arcades articulate the sanctuary and side chapels, while the organ gallery forms a vestibule at the entrance.

Much of the later nineteenth-century painted decorative scheme survives. The High Altar and Lady Altar were made by Thomas Earp of London in 1864. There is also an elaborate carved stone pulpit and font. According to HES and Scotland’s Churches Trust, Earp gave the font in gratitude after the congregation cared for his son following a serious accident while work on the High Altar was under way.

Stained glass installed in 1886 is attributed by HES to Barnet & Son of Leith. Scotland’s Churches Trust also records side altars associated with Irish and Jesuit saints, giving the interior a strong devotional as well as artistic character.

War, Migration and Memory

A sanctuary window depicting the Madonna and Child commemorates the Polish community stationed in the area during the Second World War. Scotland’s Churches Trust describes it as a memorial gift connected with that community. The window gives the church a valuable twentieth-century layer, linking the parish to wartime displacement, military presence and new communities in the Borders.

Trove also classifies the site as containing a twentieth-century war memorial plaque. Further recording of the church’s memorials and inscriptions would help develop this part of the entry without relying solely on general descriptions.

The Presbytery and Boundaries

The Category B designation covers more than the church. The presbytery on Stirling Street is an earlier nineteenth-century, two-storey, three-bay villa with an L-shaped plan and hipped roof. It is built of coursed whinstone with raised sandstone quoins and margins, and is linked to the church by a short corridor leading to the confessional.

Stepped rubble boundary walls, sandstone copes, cast-iron railings and gates complete the group. These elements help define the original edge of the site and should be read as part of its architecture rather than as incidental surroundings.

A Changed Townscape

The church was designed to command the top of Market Street. That prominence remains, but its urban setting has changed substantially. HES records that the earlier Catholic primary school to the north-west was demolished in 1989 for the Ladhope Vale bypass. The new road separated the church more sharply from the surrounding street pattern and removed an important part of the original chapel, school and church ensemble.

A comprehensive restoration was carried out in 2005. The continuing use of the church, alongside the survival of its decoration and furnishings, means that it remains both a heritage building and a living place of worship.

Why It Matters

Our Lady and St Andrew’s is important architecturally as a substantial work by Wardell, completed by Goldie & Childe and enriched by notable Victorian craftsmen. Its strong Gothic massing and elevated site make it one of Galashiels’ most recognisable churches.

Its wider significance is equally strong. The building documents Catholic worship and schooling in an expanding industrial town, the patronage of the Hope-Scott family, links with Irish, Jesuit and Polish identities, and the changing urban geography of Market Street. It is a place where architecture, faith, migration and social history remain visibly joined.

Things to Notice

• The elevated position and the way the entrance front terminates views up Market Street
• The five-arched composition of the south front
• The large traceried window, rose window and paired octagonal corner turrets
• The sequence of low copper-roofed chapels between the east-side buttresses
• The contrast between coursed rubble and smooth sandstone dressings
• Inside, the timber-lined roof, painted decoration, Earp altars, pulpit and font
• The Polish memorial window and other evidence of the church’s changing community
• The quieter domestic character of the linked presbytery

Timeline

• 1851: James and Charlotte Hope-Scott are received into the Roman Catholic Church
• 1852: parish founded; the Oblate mission begins
• 9 January 1853: temporary chapel opens
• 1856-58: principal church designed and built by William Wardell
• 1858: church opens for worship
• 1864: High Altar and Lady Altar made by Thomas Earp of London
• 1866-72: church completed and extended by Goldie & Childe
• 1870: pulpit and altar rails added
• 1873: Lady Chapel and St Patrick’s Chapel recorded as additions
• 1886: stained glass by Barnet & Son of Leith
• 1904: organ installed by Ernest Lawton of Aberdeen, according to Places of Worship in Scotland
• Second World War: Polish community commemorated in a sanctuary window
• 1979: church, presbytery, walls and railings listed at Category B
• 1989: former school demolished for the Ladhope Vale bypass
• 2005: comprehensive restoration recorded by HES

Significance Scores

These are editorial guide scores for public interpretation, not statutory designations. See the significance scoring methodology.

Notes and Uncertainties

• Sources variously describe James Hope-Scott as Robert, James Robert or Hope-Scott. The patron was James Robert Hope-Scott; his wife Charlotte was Sir Walter Scott’s granddaughter.
• The dates 1866-72 and 1873 describe overlapping phases of completion and chapel additions. They should not be compressed into a single construction date.
• HES attributes the 1886 glass to Barnet & Son of Leith; secondary sources sometimes spell the firm’s name differently.
• The exact date and donor wording of the Polish memorial window would benefit from confirmation from an inscription or parish archive.
• Current worship times and opening arrangements are deliberately not reproduced because they can change; use the parish or Archdiocese websites.

Image and Licence Notes

The principal photograph is by Stephen McKay and is reused under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence. Trove holds historic exterior views and survey material, including photographs from 1975 and records connected with the Borders Railway project; these are linked for research but not reproduced here without checking the terms for each item.

Related Places

• Trinity Church and Halls
• Galashiels Baptist Church, Victoria Street
• St Peter’s Episcopal Church
• Old Parish and St Paul’s Church, Scott Crescent

Sources

• Historic Environment Scotland, LB31997: Our Lady and St Andrew’s Church, Catholic Presbytery, walls and railings – designation, architectural description and principal chronology.
• Trove / National Record of the Historic Environment, site 99766 – archive catalogue, historic photographs and location record.
• Scotland’s Churches Trust: Our Lady & St Andrew, Galashiels – furnishings, craftsmen and Polish memorial association.
• Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh: Galashiels parish record – current parish status and foundation date.
• Parish of Our Lady & St Andrew – current worship and parish information.
• Abbotsford: remembering James Hope-Scott – Hope-Scott patronage, family context and completion of the church.
• Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate: Galashiels mission, 1852-59 – temporary chapel and early mission history.
• Places of Worship in Scotland: Our Lady & St Andrew’s – architectural survey, organ chronology and further references.