stirling-1963-vol-1/05_162

Transcription

No. 130 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 130
rough paving which is level with the ground outside but
1 ft. 8 in. lower than the raised ground-surface of the
interior, the W. portion of which has been in use as a
cemetery for a considerable time. The doorway measures
5 ft. 6 in. in width and opens through splayed and shafted
jambs supporting the finely moulded archivolt, the whole
being set in an extreme wall-thickness of 6 ft. The jambs
originally consisted of five main disengaged shafts, each
about 5 in. in diameter, which are now missing although
their water-holding bases and bell-shaped capitals survive.
Two lesser attached shafts are placed in the central nooks
between the larger shafts; the innermost nook is moulded
and the outermost is enriched with dog-tooth ornamenta-
tion, this latter being repeated in the nook on the outer
side of the foremost shaft and on the central member of
the archivolt. On each side of the doorway the jamb
immediately returns to form one side of a benched recess
with an angle-shaft in each nook. Beyond the recess the
wall has been buttressed, and a splayed plinth can be
traced, in places, along the walls and on the buttresses,
not only here but all round the church except on the part
of the nave that forms the N. side of the cloister, and was
consequently an internal wall at ground level. On the
inner face of this S. wall the bases of four responds, each
outlining a former triple cluster of shafts, are spaced at
10 ft. 8 in. centres, and the bases of clusters of shafted
responds again appear in the N. transept (infra). Half of
the westernmost of the responds has been cut away, and
on the remaining portion there abuts the ingoing of a
doorway, represented by a single course of masonry, in
the position where a processional door might be expected;
the stone is wrought with water-holding bases of 13th-
century character for six alternately large and small
shafts, and as it faces inwards it would seem to be a
replacement, wrongly set, and originally intended for the
opposite side of a door opening the other way. In the
bays between the responds in the nave there have been
benches rising 12 in. above the floor, but only one broken
bench-slab remains. On the cloister side of the W. bay,
likewise, the seating of a bench survives for a length of
7 ft., with a broken bench-slab, and this benching no
doubt originally extended along the full length of the N.
cloister-walk. The floor level of the benched bays lies
2 ft. 10 in. below the sill of the main W. door, and it may
therefore be supposed that steps, now hidden under the
raised surface of the cemetery, were provided somewhere
between these two points. The present ground level in
the centre of the nave and in the N. aisle is 18 in. higher
than the floor of the bays along the S. wall, and there is
now no trace of the pier foundations of the arcade that
originally separated the nave from the aisle. In the first
two bays W. of the crossing, however, there are founda-
tions of two screen-walls, belonging respectively to an
earlier and a later period, and at the E. end of the nave
some structure the purpose of which is not altogether
clear. The screen-walls presumably separated the monks'
choir from the N. aisle of the nave, while the foundations
at the E. end of the nave may in part be those of a
pulpitum. Here too can be seen the foundations of a
massive crossing-pier and of the pier of the aisle arcade
next W. of it, both presumably belonging to the later
period. Mackison's plan shows six buttresses projecting
from the N. wall but actually eight are now exposed and
their disposition is significant in that it does not corres-
pond with the centering of the original clustered responds
on the S. side of the nave and consequently implies a
major alteration of the building. It does agree, however,
with the centering, at 14 ft. 6 in. apart, of two semi-
octagonal respond-bases on the inner face of the N. wall,
and with the position of the crossing-pier and of the pier
to the W. of it as mentioned above. The whole of the N.
wall W. of the transept is thus to be regarded as a
renewal, a conclusion borne out by Mackison's discovery
that the external base-course of this wall, near its junction
with the transept, embodied construction of an earlier
and a later period. ¹ as did also the respond-base at the
corner of the aisle and the transept, its original portion
being just covered by the later of two superimposed
floors. ²
The cemetery inside the W. end of the nave contains
no monuments earlier than 1707. Upon the E. end of its
S. wall there stands an ornamental stone finial, 3 ft. 10 in.
high, which has evidently come from the church or one
of the monastic buildings.
Inside the N. transept some original carved details
can still be identified. The respond-base just mentioned
shows that its members consisted of a number of shafts
with intervening plain surfaces, all resting on a base-
course with a small splay. The NW. corner of the
transept has been filled by a cluster of four shafts, again
represented today only by its base-course. Between the
respond and the angle-cluster, the W. wall-face has been
divided into two bays by a triple cluster which is
repeated on the N. gable-wall to mark the bay-divisions.
Vestiges of the semi-octagonal base of a respond and of
an octagonal pier-base mark the position of the arcade
of the transeptal chapel-aisles. The walls of this transept
and its chapel-aisles have been strengthened by
buttresses, all of which are original, the transept
buttresses being of slighter projection than those on the
rest of the church. The original buttresses at the NE.
and SE. corners of the transeptal aisles have been
destroyed, and their places have been taken by large
single angle-buttresses the plan of which suggests a date
in the 15th century. The buttress at the NW. corner of
the N. transept, which returns squarely along the N. and
W. sides, has been made large to accommodate a narrow
spiral stair, which must originally have risen to whatever
galleries existed in triforium and clearstorey, and to the
roof; this stair, of which two steps of a short initial
straight flight still remain, opens off a small lobby with
ingress from the transept, and at some time the lobby
was converted into an entrance from the outside by the
breaking-out of a narrow door, now blocked by a slab, in
its back wall. In the N. chapel of the S. transept there is
part of the seating of an altar, but otherwise this arm of
the church is featureless. In 1954 a 13th-century tomb-

1 Ibid., 109.
2 Ibid., 113.

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