IT is one of the most lauded, but bedevilled, buildings of our times in Scotland.

Now the latest efforts to resurrect the striking St Peter's Seminary in Cardross look to have been thwarted.

Plans to transform the modernist ruin into an arts and education centre by Glasgow arts company NVA appeared to be reaching a crescendo when the sell-out show light and music show, Hinterland, spectacularly brought the drama of ritual and ceremony of worship to life a choral and visual masterpiece at the atmospheric location.

This came 50 years after the seminary, designed by Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, was completed as a training centre for more than 100 priests.

As these numbers dwindled attempts to make the building work failed when its doors closed in 1980, and it existed then only as a ruin, seldom serviced and frequently vandalised.

The new government grant money was to help see elements of the building restored whilst others were to be "consolidated" to allow the public safe access to large scale events and performance as well as to smaller community activities.

The chapel was to be partially restored and converted into a 600-capacity venue while the former sacristy and crypt would be a focal point for exhibitions.

These plans included the 104-acre rural estate surrounding the architectural masterpiece, an estate which includes the remains of the 15th century Kilmahew Castle.

A path network based on the original 19th century designed landscape was expected to be reinstated, historic bridges restored and the Victorian walled garden brought back into productive use, bringing the site back to life and encouraging new audiences to visit.

It was also expected that over 200 people would work the land as volunteers, and it must have seemed like a bright prospect when Hinterland audiences walked through the semi-ancient woodland of Kilmahew under a multi-coloured spotlight and to the tones performed by St Salvator’s Chapel Choir.

It was envisaged the site would formally re-open as an arts space and education facility in 2018 after a £10m revamp and hopes that tens of thousands would be able to rediscover the building.

The public events followed an extensive programme of work to make the building safe and may yet be the groundwork for the building's future.