St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross

St Peter’s seminary, built to train priests on a windy hillside west of Glasgow following the burning down of its predecessor, opened in 1966 and closed in 1980. It is the most remarkable modern ruin in Britain and one of the best of any time. It is something to do with the combination of intended and accidental drama, the contest of forces of nature and of human creation and destruction.

Designed by the firm of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia in the brutalist style, it has been described by the international architecture conservation organisation DOCOMOMO as a modern "building of world significance". It is one of only 42 post-war buildings in Scotland to be listed at Category A, the highest level of protection for a building of "special architectural or historic interest". It has been abandoned since the end of the 1980s, and is currently in a ruinous state. It was announced in early 2015 that the site had been handed over to artist Angus Farquhar, with the intention that part of it will become an arts venue.

It never reached its full capacity and became decommissioned in the 1980s, then burned down in the 90s, leaving only the ruins which can be viewed today.