Chapel of Saint Albert, University of Edinburgh Chaplaincy

Image: Naomi Billingsley

The Lord took his disciples into the Garden to watch and pray. Recent new churches such as Minster Abbey in Kent or Our Lady Queen of Apostles in Bishops Waltham have been given clear windows that look onto greenery, preserving that important link with creation and John Paul II’s ‘altar of the world’. The Dominicans at the University Catholic chaplaincy in Edinburgh have now gone further, planting their new chapel of Saint Albert in their George Square garden. With its walls of oak and hand-cut stone, and floor-to-roof glass so clear as not to be there, the chapel reflects its environment and truly feels as though it is growing from the soil, at one with the trees around it.

After greeting Mary at the entrance, the eye is drawn straight to the sanctuary. The tree-like arches framing the altar, ambo and tabernacle more than nod to the baldachino beloved of traditionalists, but in no way do they distract from the stone Altar or the Crowned and Risen Lord opening his arms on the oaken crucifix. A place to watch and pray, and incorporating a fragment of Dominican history, for surely this is the processional cross from the former Hawkesyard Priory?

The clear glass and plain walls themselves deliberately recall historical Dominican simplicity of worship in plain preaching houses, a far cry indeed from the gothic splendour of Hawkesyard or Blackfriars in Oxford. Edinburgh’s chapel replaces a drawing room into which we not so long ago crammed for an intimate Eucharist. After attending Mass in the new chapel it is clear that none of that intimacy has been lost in the successful endeavour to allow access for all. Indeed the ceremony was celebrated with dignity as well as simplicity. And Dominicans do know how to preach!

Wheelchair friendliness is not easily achieved in hilly Edinburgh, still less in a listed Georgian house on an historic square. A completely new building was needed, the first new Dominican chapel in Scotland since the Reformation. It was worth waiting for; access seems to have been well planned, with a level entrance along the garden path.
From outside the walled garden the chapel is almost invisible, complying with planning restrictions in this historic quarter. We were told that the friars used every inch of ground and of height that they were allowed. Entering from the garden rather than through the Priory basement area, the impression that the chapel has risen from the soil is even greater. This is a masterpiece of liturgical architecture. Visit if you are in town; support the appeal if you can. Sunday morning Masses are at 9am, 10am and 12noon.