Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys Part 10

Dr. Boog, one of the Abbey ministers, and who in 1817 had it brought within the chapel and erected again. It supports a rec.u.mbent figure, believed to be the effigy of Marjory Bruce, the daughter of Robert I. and the mother of Robert II. "The head of the figure is surmounted by a large cusped canopy, placed in a horizontal position, on the end of which is carved a crucifixion. The pedestal is carved with a series of Gothic compartments, in each of which there is carved a s.h.i.+eld, enriched with heraldic blazons and figures of ecclesiastics. The panels at the west end contain--the first the _fess cheque_ of the Stewarts between three roses; the third the _fess cheque_, surmounted of a lion rampant, and the central one, two keys saltierwise, between two crosiers in pale."[401] The chapel is famed for an echo, described by Pennant in his _Tour Through Scotland_,[402] but Dr. Lees regards the description of the far-famed traveller as either much exaggerated, or the strength of the echo has become diminished since his time. "When any number of persons are within the building, an echo is scarcely audible at all.

It is amusing sometimes to see a group of people expending the strength of their lungs in vain by attempting to evoke it."[403]

Crosses seem to have been placed at intervals on the roads leading to the church. One of the south piers of the nave is called the Cathcart pillar, and has carved upon it a s.h.i.+eld bearing the Cathcart arms. This is believed to be a memorial of Sir Allan Cathcart, who has thus been described by Barbour:--

A knycht, that their wis in hys rout, Worthy and wycht, stalwart and stout, Curtaiss and fayr, and off gud fame, Schyr Allane of Catkert by name.

King Robert the Bruce died in 1329, and Sir Allan of Cathcart and Sir James of Dougla.s.s sailed in 1330 for the Holy Land with the King's heart. Sir James was killed in Spain in conflict with the Moors, and Sir Allan came back with the heart of the King, which was buried in Melrose Abbey. The pillar commemorates his safe return.

On the west b.u.t.tress of the north transept, at 21 feet in height, is the s.h.i.+eld of the Stewarts, with a pastoral staff, and the word "Stewart."

The first central tower erected over the crossing seems to have been of inferior workmans.h.i.+p and to have given way. Another is believed to have been erected by Abbot Tervas, which probably fell during the siege by Lennox and Glencairn, and may have destroyed much of the choir and transept in its fall. Western towers appear to have been contemplated.

"We are only able," says Dr. Cameron Lees, "to conjecture what was the position of the conventual buildings. But after comparing the plan of Wenlock, from which the monks originally came, with that of Crosraguel, which they afterwards erected, we think it is probable that the chapter-house, with Saint Mirin's Chapel, occupied the east side of the cloister court, the refectory the south side, and the dormitory the west. The Abbot's house probably stood at the south end of what is called Cotton Street. There were buildings also between the Abbey and the river Cart attached to the monastery, portions of the foundations of which are occasionally uncovered."[404] "The shape of the cloister court has been partially retained. The conventual buildings were almost all converted after the Reformation into dwelling-houses, and though fragments of the old houses, such as an occasional pillar or arch, are to be found, there is little to remind one of dormitory, parlour, or refectory."[405]

The nave is still used as the parish church. About 1782 it was in a dreadful condition. The roof was full of holes, through which the birds obtained free access, "distracting the attention of the wors.h.i.+ppers in time of sermon." They built their nests and reared their young under the arches of the clerestory. A few of the gentry had "lofts" or galleries, but the bulk of the wors.h.i.+ppers brought their seats to church with them, while the poorest sat upon stones on the earthen floor.[406] Things had become so bad that the heritors thought of pulling down the abbey, and building a "commodious kirk" with the stones.[407] This insane proposal was averted from execution by the energy and wisdom of the Rev. Dr.

Boog, minister of the First Charge in 1782, and to him the country owes the credit of preserving all that now remains. "He received much a.s.sistance from the Dowager Countess of Glasgow, who resided at Hawkhead, and through their joint exertions the Abbey was not only saved from destruction, but was repaired in a way which, considering the ignorance of that time on the subject of restoration, was highly creditable."[408] Dr. Lees describes the condition of the building at his induction in 1859 as dreadful: "The interior was like a vault in a churchyard."[409] But thanks to the exertions of the Rev. Mr. Wilson and Dr. Lees himself, several thousand pounds were collected and spent in remedying this state of affairs. The church was made seemly as a venerable temple for prayer ought to be. "The unsightly galleries were taken down, the floor cleared of the acc.u.mulated rubbish of centuries, the body of the church re-seated, the clerestory windows opened up, the transept walls and windows restored, and the turrets rebuilt. Men of all creeds contributed to the work, and when the Abbey, on the 27th April 1862, was re-opened for public wors.h.i.+p, it could scarcely be recognised, so changed was it from its former condition."[410] In closing his splendid volume Dr. Lees adds, "We trust the time is not far distant when the Abbey of the first Stewart will stand forth again in all its pristine beauty--with transept, and choir, and tower, as in the days of the founder." That hope will soon pa.s.s into a reality, and Scotland will have a completely restored abbey church used as a parish church.

_Kelso Abbey (Roxburghs.h.i.+re)._--In 1113 David, Earl of Huntingdon, and heir-presumptive to the Scottish throne, introduced a colony of thirteen Reformed Benedictine monks from the newly founded abbey of Tiron in Picardy, and planted it near his forest castle of Selkirk. He endowed it with large possessions in Scotland, and a valuable territory in his southern earldom of Huntingdon, but the French monks were dissatisfied with their position on the banks of the Ettrick, and on David's accession to the throne of his brother he removed them from Selkirk--"a place unsuitable for an abbey"--and established the monastery "at the Church of the Blessed Virgin on the bank of the Tweed, beside Roxburgh, in the place called Calkow."[411] The abbey was dedicated to the Virgin and St. John the Baptist. Its first abbot was Ralph, one of the French monks, and the Scotch chronicles state that he succeeded St. Bernard, the reformer of the order, in his abbacy at Tiron, on his death in 1116, but Dr. Cosmo Innes thinks this can scarcely be reconciled with the succession of abbots as given by the French writers.[412] The monastery soon became the richest and most powerful in Scotland, and in 1165 the Pope granted permission to the abbot to wear the mitre, and the abbot claimed precedence of all the superiors of monasteries in Scotland. In 1420 this precedence was decided by James I. in favour of the prior of St. Andrews.[413] Many of the abbots were distinguished men, who were employed in the affairs of the kingdom, and several were promoted to bishoprics.[414] Foremost in rank and power, the monks of Kelso also vindicated their place by the practice of the monastic virtues, and a copy of Wyntoun's _Chronicle_ is supposed to have been written at Kelso.[415] They seem to have recalled the saying, claustrum sine literatura vivi hominis est sepultura ("the cloister without literature is the grave of a living man"), and Dr. Cosmo Innes remarks

"That the arts were cultivated within the Abbey walls we may conclude without much extrinsic evidence. The beautiful and somewhat singular architecture of the ruined church itself still gives proof of taste and skill and some science in the builders, at a period which the confidence of modern times has proclaimed dark and degraded; and if we could call up to the fancy the magnificent Abbey and its interior decorations, to correspond with what remains of that ruined pile, we should find works of art that might well exercise the talents of high masters. The erection of such a structure often extended over several hundred years. Kelso bears mark of having been a full century in building; and during all that time at least, perhaps for long afterwards, the carver of wood, the sculptor in stone and marble, the tile-maker and the lead and iron-worker, the painter, whether of scripture stories or of heraldic blazonings, the designer and the worker in stained gla.s.s for those gorgeous windows which we now vainly try to imitate--must each have been in requisition, and each, in the exercise of his art, contributed to raise the taste and cultivate the minds of the inmates of the cloister. Of many of these works the monks themselves were the artists and artisans, and it would be a grievous mistake to suppose that the effect was merely that of living and working in an artist's shop. The interest and honour of the convent, the honest rivalry with neighbouring houses and other orders; above all, the zeal for religion which was honoured by their efforts, the strong desire to render its rites magnificent, and to set forth in a worthy manner the wors.h.i.+p of the Deity--all these gave to the works of the old monks a principle and a feeling above what modern art must ever hope to reach."[416]

Situated as it was near the Border, the abbey suffered severely during the War of Independence. The monastery was laid waste and the monks were supported by contributions from the other houses of their own order. In 1344 the abbey buildings were destroyed by fire, and David II. granted permission to the monks to cut wood in Selkirk and Jedwart Forest to enable them to carry out the necessary repairs.

In 1511 the Bishop of Caithness was appointed commendator, and decline of the abbey soon followed. After the battle of Flodden in 1513, David Ker of Cessford took possession of the abbey, and his brother was appointed abbot. In 1522 and 1523 invasion and havoc spread over Teviotdale; Lords Ross and Dacre pillaged the town, sparing the abbey; but in 1523 Lord Dacre sacked and burned it. The abbot's house and buildings surrounding it, the chapel of the Virgin, and the cells of the dormitory were all reduced to ashes; the lead was stripped from the roof, and the abbey rendered uninhabitable. All religious services were stopped, and the monks had to retire in want and poverty to a village near. From 1536 to 1538 James Stewart, natural son of James V., was abbot, and drew the revenues. In 1542 the Duke of Norfolk, and in 1545 the Earl of Hertford, again attacked and further destroyed the abbey. On the latter occasion the garrison of the abbey--numbering 100, of whom 12 were monks--refused the summons of the Herald to surrender, and succeeded in repulsing the Spanish mercenaries, who were the first to attack the building. It was then bombarded and the monastery captured; but the garrison still held out in the strong square tower of the church, whence some of them, though strictly watched, escaped by means of ropes during the night. The next day the a.s.sault was resumed, the tower carried, and the defenders were put to the sword. The buildings were then sacked and destroyed, the order being given to "breik them"

and "thake of the leied, and outer myen the towres and strong places, and to owaier trowe all." By the following Sunday this had been strictly carried out; the abbey was razed, and "all put to royen, howsses, and towres, and stypeles." The removal of the lead to Wark alone occupied the carts of the army for several days. After this the abbeys of Melrose, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh shared in the fate of Kelso,[417] but, unlike it, they did not resist. Kelso Abbey was still further reduced by Lord Eure in 1546; and finally in 1560, when a few monks still remained, the buildings were attacked by the mob, and all the remaining fittings and furnis.h.i.+ngs destroyed. In 1559 the revenues and property of the abbey were taken possession of by the Lords of the Congregation in the name of the Crown. The temporalities were afterwards distributed amongst the favourites of James VI., and were finally conferred on Sir Robert Ker of Cessford, who was created Lord Roxburgh in 1599. The abbey still belongs to his successor, the Duke of Roxburgh, and the remains of the late duke are buried in the south transept.[418] In 1649 a vault was thrown over the transept so as to convert it into a parish church, and above this another vault served as a prison! This is seen in Grose's view, made about a century ago.

"During service on a Sunday in 1771 a panic was caused by the fall of a fragment of cement, and the church was thereafter abandoned.

The ruins were partly disenc.u.mbered by the Duke of Roxburgh, 1805-16, and in 1823 the buildings were repaired by the n.o.blemen and gentlemen of the county."[419]

Referring to the modern town, Dr. Cosmo Innes says:--

"Reposing on the sunny bank of its own beautiful river, the modern town of Kelso looks a fitting rural capital for 'pleasant Teviotdale.' It has little of the air of an old monastic burgh, and still less calls up any recollection of the heaps of ruins that impeded the plans of the English engineers. There is not much knowledge or tradition of its former state, and but few memorials of its old inhabitants. Last year (1845) a worthy burgher, who had dug up in his garden under the abbey walls what seemed to him a rare coin of a Scotch king, was scarcely well pleased to learn that it was a leaden _bulla_ of Pope Alexander III., bronzed with the oxidising of seven centuries.

In the midst of the modern town the abbey church stands alone, like some antique t.i.tan predominating over the dwarfs of a later world."[420]

Considering all the dangers and neglect of the centuries, it is astonis.h.i.+ng that so many of the ruins still exist.

The building has consisted of choir or chancel of considerable length, with north and south aisles, and of a transept and nave without aisles. The north and south divisions of the transept and nave form three arms of equal length round the three sides of the crossing, above which rises the ma.s.sive square tower.[421] The church was originally constructed in the late Norman style of about the end of the twelfth century, pa.s.sing into the transition style--the upper part of the tower having been rebuilt at a later period.[422] Of the chancel only a fragment remains--two of the south main piers with arches and two stories of arcades above, which represent the triforium and clerestory. The chancel only had aisles.

The main piers consist of a circular column, five feet in diameter, with smaller attached half-columns on three sides to carry the moulded arches between the main piers and the arches between the latter and the aisles.[423] "The piers have caps of the usual Norman modified cus.h.i.+on pattern, and the arches were moulded and arranged in several orders. The arcade immediately over the main arches has a row of single round shafts, with spreading Norman caps, which carry a series of moulded arches, occupying the position of the triforium.

The upper arcade, which takes the place of the clerestory, has shafts of triple form, with wide spreading bases and caps of Norman and transition design. On the latter rest the round boldly-moulded arches. The arches opposite the windows in the outer wall are slightly larger than the others. It will be observed that there is no main vaulting shaft carried up over the main piers, as is almost invariably the case, for the purpose of strengthening the wall. On the contrary, the triforium arcade is continuous, and no provision is made to support the side wall, except the single shafts of the running arcade, which have a very weak effect. In the usual arrangement, the triforium arches are separated by a substantial piece of wall, including a vaulting shaft, and the triforium arch, which is generally subdivided into several subordinate arches, is introduced between the vaulting shafts. That is a much more substantial form of construction, and also more satisfactory to the eye, than the plan adopted here of a simple continuous arcade." In the exterior of this portion of the choir the outside of the clerestory windows is visible, being simple round-headed openings, with flat b.u.t.tresses between them. The remainder of the wall is plain, but, judging from the level of the triforium window, the vaulting of the aisle, which was very high and partly covered the windows, seems to have been added at a later date. The crossing is square; the piers are about nine feet square--that at the south-east angle standing detached in consequence of the opening into the south aisle, while those at the north-west and south-west angles are incorporated with the walls. The piers are designed as a series of shafts, set in square nooks (four on each of the complete sides), with a large semicircular shaft at each angle. The shafts are all built in courses with the piers, and have transition bases and caps. From the latter spring large pointed arches, with plain chamfered orders. The pointed arch indicates the transitional character of this part of the building, and was probably introduced in this position to give strength to sustain the tower. The three arms of the cross branching to the north, south, and west from the crossing are of equal size--an unusual arrangement, as the nave is generally the longest division of the church. This was part of the original design, as the western doorway is one of the most prominently Norman portions of the edifice, and no satisfactory explanation has yet been given of the shortness of the Kelso nave.

The upper portion of the west front has been in the transitional style, and the Norman arcading, which runs round the interior of the nave, was continued across the west end.

The nave, north and south transepts, contain each four stories in height, consisting of an interlacing arcade of Norman work in the interior of the ground level, and three stories of windows above.

The upper arcades of the choir do not extend round the nave and transepts, except in a portion of the south transept. The windows in the different stories have all round arches, both inside and outside, and the exterior is marked at each angle by broad and shallow Norman b.u.t.tresses, with nook shafts in the angles, and an interlacing arcade round the lower story, both internally and externally. In the facades of the west end and north transept the windows of the different stories have been grouped so as to form distinct designs. "In the west end, over the great west doorway, there has been an arrangement of tall windows of apparently lancet form, having on either side an interlacing arcade of round arches, supported on tall, bended shafts. This is now, unfortunately, greatly destroyed. Above the arcade there runs a horizontal flat cornice, enriched with several rows of carved ornaments, and this was surmounted by a large opening of quatrefoil shape, surrounded with numerous mouldings and enrichments. The angle b.u.t.tresses have been crowned with octagonal turrets."[424]

The north wall of the north transept has a fine transitional door-piece, occupying the two lower stories. The next two stories have each two windows, separated by a small b.u.t.tress, and the upper story has three arches in the interior. "Above these stories is a small circular window with a curious saving arch over it, and the whole is crowned with a top story, containing three round-headed openings, and a gable with a small circular aperture. The b.u.t.tresses at the angles are crowned with circular turrets, which have been finished with a projecting parapet, the corbels for carrying which still survive. The upper part of the gable shows signs of having been altered."[425]

The west doorway and the north door-piece are interesting; the former, the south half of which has perished, and which was finished with a sloping gable and stone roof, is regarded as a rich specimen of the elaborate carved work that characterised the late Norman period. "The jambs contained five detached shafts set in nooks, and having Norman bases and carved caps. Over each of these shafts there springs a circular order, carved with rich Norman ornament, now, however, very much decayed. The jambs of the doorway also formed moulded shafts, supporting their order in the arch."[426] The door-piece of the north transept wall is a prominent feature, projects 4 feet 6 inches from the main wall, has two stories, and is roofed with a sloping stone roof. The shafts have the usual Norman caps and bases, and the mouldings of the arch are p.r.o.nounced to be peculiar in their profile. The outer one is enriched with small medallions, the central with the billet, and the inner one with rosettes. Above the archway there is an arcade of interlacing round shafts--the shafts, which were destroyed, having Norman caps. "The tympanum of the gable is covered with a reticulation of round beads or rolls."[427] The south and west sides and a small portion of the north and east sides of the tower remain. It is 35 feet square over the walls, and "is carried up with plain masonry externally, but the interior has immediately over the great arches of the crossing an arcade of round moulded arches, supported on triple shafts similar to those of the choir. Above this arcade is another story containing simple round arched openings, which are lighted on the exterior by circular windows containing quatrefoils. Over this tier is the upper story, which contains three pointed and deeply-recessed windows on each side of the tower. Broad, flat b.u.t.tresses are placed at each angle of the tower, similar to those of the main building, and these were, no doubt, originally finished with turrets like those of the transepts.... The upper part of the tower is later than the lower part. This is apparent from the pointed windows of the top story and the quatrefoiled circular windows of the story beneath. The lower story immediately over the great arches is, without doubt, of about the same date as the choir."[428] There were probably similar staircases in other parts of the structure now removed, but the approach to the upper floors is now by one staircase in the N.W.

angle of the transept. Pa.s.sages between the arcades and the outer walls went round the building on every floor, and in the angles of the tower there are small wheel stairs leading to every floor, and pa.s.sages running round the tower on every story. These arcades and pa.s.sages have tended to weaken the structure, and it has been found necessary to strengthen it with numerous iron tie-rods, iron beams, etc.[429]

There was an outer door in the S.W. angle of the transept, and another in the north wall of the nave adjoining the crossing. A tomb recess is in the south transept wall, and in the recess beneath are two ambries or lockers and a piscina, the only one remaining in the building. To the south of the transept there is a vaulted chamber that may have been the sacristy.[430]

_Arbroath Abbey (Forfars.h.i.+re)._--This abbey was founded in 1178 by William the Lion, and dedicated to S.S. Mary and Thomas a Becket. Becket had been martyred at the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral only seven years before, and William the Lion had recently suffered defeat and capture by the English at Alnwick. William had been personally acquainted with Becket, and is supposed to have regarded him as a private friend.

"Was this the cause," asks Dr. Cosmo Innes, "or was it the natural propensity to extol him who, living and dead, had humbled the crown of England, that led William to take St. Thomas as his patron saint, and to entreat his intercession when he was in greatest trouble? Or may we consider the dedication of his new abbey, and his invocation of the martyr of Canterbury, as nothing more than the signs of the rapid spreading of the veneration for the new saint of the high church party, from which his old opponent himself, Henry of England, was not exempt?"

As showing the eagerness with which King William pushed on the buildings, Hollinshed mentions that

"The King came by the Abbey of Aberbrothoc to view the work of that house, how it went forward, commanding them that were overseers and masters of the works to spare for no cost, but to bring it up to perfection, and that with magnificence."[431]

The abbey received great endowments from King William and from many subsequent princes and barons; acquired in 1204 a charter of privileges from King John of England and was one of the foremost and richest in Scotland. Its monks were Tyronenses, and the first were brought from Kelso Abbey.

"By the year 1178 part of the church was ready for dedication.

William the Lion died in 1214, and was buried in the east end of the edifice, which was then finished. Shortly afterwards the south transept was sufficiently well advanced to admit of the burial within it, before the altar of St. Catherine, of Gilchrist, Earl of Angus. On the 18th of March 1233, during the time of Abbot Ralph de Lamley, the church was dedicated. The time occupied in the erection and completion of the structure was thus a little over fifty-five years, and when its dimensions are considered, it will be found in comparison with other churches to have been carried on with great rapidity."[432]

The abbots had several special privileges; they were exempted from a.s.sisting at the yearly synods; they had the custody of the Brecbennach, or consecrated banner of St. Columba; they acquired from Pope Benedict, by Bull, dated at Avignon, the right to wear a mitre, and were in some instances the foremost churchmen of the Kingdom. The abbey was toll-free, _i.e._ protected against the local impositions which of old beset all merchandise.

"But," says Dr. Cosmo Innes, "the privilege the abbot most valued (and intrinsically the most valuable) was the tenure of all his lands, 'in free regality,' _i.e._ with sovereign power over his people, and the unlimited emoluments of criminal jurisdiction....

Even after the Reformation had pa.s.sed over abbot and monk, the lord of regality had still the same power, and the Commendator of Arbroath was able to rescue from the King's Justiciar and to 'repledge' into his own court four men accused of the slaughter of William Sibbald of Cair--as dwelling within his bounds (quasi infra bondas ejusdem commorantes). The officer who administered this formidable jurisdiction was the Bailie of the Regality, or 'Justiciar Chamberlain and Bailie'--the Bailiary had become virtually hereditary in the family of Airlie.[433] ... The mair and the coroner of the abbey were the executors of the law within the bounds of the regality, and the best thought it no degradation to hold their lands as va.s.sals of the great abbey."[434]

The monks made a harbour and fixed a bell on the Inchcape Rock as a warning to sailors; the abbey was burnt in 1272 and 1380.

Referring to its chartulary as a record of the names of the old Scottish families Dr. Cosmo Innes says:--

"Many of our ancient families went down in the War of Independence, and few of our present aristocracy trace back beyond the revolution of families and property which took place under Bruce. The Earls of Angus, Fife, and Strathearn are little more than mythological personages to the modern genealogist.... It is the common case all over Scotland."[435]

In connection with the monks he has the following interesting note:--

"It is to be remarked that in Scotland, as in other countries, while the secular or parochial clergy were often the younger sons of good families, the convents of monk and friars were recruited wholly from the lower cla.s.ses; and yet--not to speak of the daily bread, the freedom from daily care, all the vulgar temptations of such a life in hard times--the career of a monk opened no mean path to the ambitious spirit. The offices of the monastery alone might well seem prizes to be contended for by the son of the peasant or burgess, and the highest of these placed its holder on a level with the greatest of the n.o.bility."[436]

The last abbot was Cardinal Beaton, at the same time Archbishop of St.

Andrews. The abbey suffered after the Reformation from the revenues having become the property of the Hamiltons, and as they were appropriated to the private use of that family, there were no funds to keep up the buildings, which fell gradually into decay, and were freely used by the magistrates and townspeople as a quarry. The property was converted into a temporal lords.h.i.+p in favour of Lord Claude Hamilton, third son of the Duke of Chatelherault.

In sketching the history of this famous abbey, the "Aberbrothock Manifesto" of 1320 must be recalled, in which it becomes manifest that the Scottish Church was never a complaisant va.s.sal of Rome.[437] There breathes in it a spirit of freedom and natural independence, and a refusal to accept the interference of Rome in the affairs of the State.

The Scottish n.o.bles protest against the papal countenance given to the English aggressions, and distinctly tell Pope John XXII. that "not for glory, riches, or honour we fight, but for _liberty alone_, which no good man loses but with his life."[438]

The abbey church consisted of a choir of three bays, with side aisles and an aisleless presbytery; a nave of nine bays, with aisles and north and south transepts with eastern aisles; two western towers and one large central tower. Considerable portions of these divisions still remain, but the greater part of the north side of the choir, the north transept and nave, and almost all the piers and pillars have been swept away. Beginning at the east end, the eastern wall is entire for nearly half its height, having an arcade below and three lancet windows above, with the lower portions of an upper row of similar windows. Somewhat less of the return wall of the south side of the presbytery, comprising two bays, remains, and adjoining it is the sacristy, a late building fairly well preserved.

The end wall of the south transept is almost complete, along with a considerable portion of the west wall of the transept, which gives a good idea of the grandeur of the church. The whole of the nave south wall remains, showing a row of windows and indications of the groining of the aisle. The central aisle was not vaulted, but covered with a wooden roof. Most of the bases of the nave pillars are in position, as are also the foundations of the north transept.

The west end fragment and the two towers left standing, are striking and impressive in their vigorous work.[439] Bold, vigorous work, with refinement of detail, is seen in the western doorway. It is round arched, and its outer order, if it may be so called, extends inwards for about five feet, unadorned as a bold and plain tunnel arch, having a pointed arch in each ingoing. It then becomes shafted and richly moulded, after the transition manner. This arrangement, while it gives a fine shadow under the arch, has a feeling of rudeness, which, to a considerable extent, characterises the whole west front. "There is a remarkable resemblance in the decoration of this doorway to that of the doorway in the porch of Lerida Cathedral, Spain, supposing the tunnel arch of Arbroath away, and the moulded part brought forward to the face of the wall, as is the case at Lerida.... A similar ring ornament, on a large scale, is also to be seen in a doorway at Lamington, Lanarks.h.i.+re, where it is likewise used along with the zig-zag, but there the ringed order is the outer enrichment."[440]

The removal of the outer part of a gallery, which existed over this doorway, has increased the rude appearance of the west front, but the inner part of this gallery still remains. Within the great thickness of the wall a chamber of considerable size was obtained, and it opens into the nave by six pointed arches, and to the outside over the doorway by three arches. It is regarded as obvious that three gablets projected outwards from the wall for a distance of about four feet, supported on two intermediate shafts, and that the gallery was closed in at each end with walls or haffits, both of which still remain in part. We now see the west front robbed of its most unique features; the gallery was reached by a long pa.s.sage at each end from stairs in the angle-b.u.t.tresses. It probably was a gallery for an orchestra, and may have also been used as a pulpit to address an open-air audience.[441]

Above this gallery was an immense circular window, a portion of which still survives. "It is probable that this part of the building was erected at two different times, the west doorway and some of the pillars of the gallery being in the early transition style, while the triple windows to the front and the six-light arcade towards the interior are in the first pointed style. When the gallery was completed in the first pointed period, the floor s.p.a.ce was enlarged by extending it to the front, hence the necessity for the deep tunnel arch over the west doorway. The pointed arches in the ingoing also indicate this first pointed period."[442]

The western towers opened with arches into the north, south, and central aisles, but only the north tower retains its ma.s.sive pier and arches, while of the south tower nothing but the foundation of the pier exists. The south wall of the transept is externally plain, the upper part being visible above the dormitory roof. The facade has two plain lancet windows, one shorter than the other, and above them is a large wheel window. The interior of the transept is a very grand design in the early pointed style.[443] Beneath the splayed lancets there is a round arched open arcade, with a pa.s.sage behind it, and beneath this, two tiers of wall arcades with pointed arches, the central arcade being very acutely pointed, the lower one not so decidedly, and with trefoil cusps in the arches. A staircase in the S.E. angle of the transept gave access to the dormitory by the door, seen built up on the outside.[444] This staircase also leads to the various pa.s.sages in the thickness of the walls, and the church doorway leading to this stair is round arched and ranges with the lower pointed arcade. The lower arcade of the south end is continued along the west wall, and above this rise two widely-splayed windows.

All the lofty south transept windows have pa.s.sages on two floors, and the transepts had chapels on the east side. "The respond of the great arcade against the south wall is beautiful in detail. Above this there exist fragments of the responds of the triforium story and the clerestory. All the above features of this part of the abbey point plainly to its having some lingering remains of transition style, retaining, as it does, some round arches along with the general features of the design."[445]

The vestry or sacristy was built by Abbot Walter Painter between 1411 and 1433, and is a two-storied building, the ground floor having a groined ceiling, still entire, and the upper room being roofless. Its features are of fifteenth-century work, and the building is in good preservation.