Michael Turnbull: Future of Scottish Catholic Archives up in the air

It will be carrying 27,000 books, the former library of Blairs College, Aberdeen, sent back from the Scots colleges in Italy, France, Spain and the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium). Many thousands of these books were originally stored in Edinburgh before they went to Blairs, outside Aberdeen.

From 1829 the main building at Blairs was the junior seminary for Scotland until its closure in 1986. Subsequently it was sold by the bishops to the Muir Group who plan to develop the site as an £115 million resort with a hotel, golf course, conference centre and private housing. This project is slowly progressing through the planning and consent process but, because of new regulations introduced for Donald Trump, has to go to the Scottish Government.

In August 1958 the Scottish bishops took a most radical step to make the Church’s archives, stored at Blairs College, more available to a wider circle of students, researchers and scholars and so the vast collection – of what is today over a million documents – was moved to 16 Drummond Place, Edinburgh to be close to the National Library of Scotland and the National Records of Scotland.

Thus, the Scottish Catholic Archives were born. In 1974 the bishops went even further. They deposited on an open-ended long-term loan at the National Library of Scotland the 27,000 volumes, pamphlets and manuscripts of the Blairs library — books and manuscripts from the Scots Colleges founded on the Continent after the Reformation, and from the clandestine seminaries in Scotland. Now, after what has been described as “several years of discussion and debate within the Church’s Heritage Commission”, the Scottish bishops are about to remove the 100,000 most important documents dating from before 1878. What is to happen to the remaining post-1878 documents is not entirely clear, but it will certainly mean the demoting of the role of Columba House and its eventual closure, as this material is destined for a converted monastery in Pollokshields, currently undergoing renovation.

This seismic change involving the redevelopment of the Blairs campus, the Pollokshields centre and the eventual closure of Columba House appears to be largely the vision of one man – Archbishop Mario Conti, who has managed to carry with him not only the Scottish Catholic Heritage Commission but all of his fellow-bishops – in throwing the Scottish Catholic Archives up into the air and allowing them to land wherever his fancy pleases.

The impact of this decision will be left for his successors to pick up, but it will surely have a devastating effect on the development of Catholic history as an integral part of the story of Scotland.

• Michael T R B Turnbull is a writer with a PhD in Ecclesiastical History