expanse, the view of the edifice, as seen from the south-west (Fig. 508), with its lofty front and ancient tower rising above the wooded bank of the stream, is particularly charming.
The structure (Fig. 509) consists of a nave of eight bays, with north and south aisles, an aisleless choir of six bays, an northern aisle unconnected with the choir, except by a doorway, and the twelfth century tower attached to the south aisle of the nave.
The tower is 22 feet 6 inches square, with walls about 5 feet in thickness. It is awkwardly placed in connection with the church, the walls not being parallel to those of the nave, while the tower projects into the south aisle from 6 feet to 7 feet 6 inches. A high window in the east wall of the ground floor of the tower is, in consequence, built up by the wall of the aisle. The ground floor has a pointed ribbed barrel vault, and a wheel stair in the south-west angle leads to the top. The doorway of the tower is in the north wall, and now enters from the south aisle of the nave (Fig. 510); but, so far as can be ascertained, the doorway appears to have been originally an external one. The sill is about 3 feet above the existing level of the floor of the nave. It has a nook shaft on each side, with the usual Norman cap and base, and a semicircular arch head. There is no appearance of any building having originally been joined to, or abutted against, the tower, which would therefore seem to have stood detached. It would thus be to a certain extent in accordance with the traditional design, being detached like the Irish towers, though square on plan, not round like them. It also resembled the Irish towers in having the doorway raised some feet above the ground. As Dunblane was several times pillaged and destroyed by the Norsemen, the tower may have been intended, as the ancient round towers were, to serve as a place of defence against such inroads, as well as for a belfry.
The tower (Fig. 511) is six stories in height. The lower four of these stories form part of the original structure, and have small narrow apertures, except the fourth story, which was probably the original top story or belfry, and has a two-light window on each side. These consist of an opening with plain jambs and round arched head, divided into two lights by a central shaft having Norman cap and base and two small plain round arched heads within the outer arch. The four lower stories of the tower are all built with red freestone, the fifth story is of yellow freestone, the sixth or top story of a grey freestone, and the tower is finished with a parapet of red freestone. The two highest stories are evidently of a late date. The top story contains a large pointed window on each side with a central mullion. The form of these windows is inelegant, and they are probably of sixteenth century date. The parapet, with its angle bartisans resembling those of the castles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but with almost no projection, is apparently still later than the belfry story. On the parapet are the arms of Bishop Chisholm, about 1500. The slated
wooden roof is comparatively modern, but is on the lines of the one which preceded it.
Judging from the style of the architecture the next oldest part of the fabric after the tower is the north aisle of the choir (generally called the lady chapel). The work here (Fig. 512) is all of a rather early first pointed style. The buttresses are plain with simple set offs, and the windows consist of two or three small pointed lights enclosed within one larger arch. The latter are low segmental pointed arches, and the haunches are raised so as to allow the small side lights to be carried as high as possible. This building is vaulted (Fig. 513) with pointed groins of first pointed section, which spring from semi-octagonal shafts with early caps, and the bosses at the intersection are carved with first pointed foliage. Above the vault there is an upper story with small two-light windows. It is approached by a wheel stair in the thickness of the west wall, entered both from the lady chapel and the nave aisle. Such upper stories over the aisles of early churches are not uncommon, as at Durham, Ely, St. Albans, Dunfermline, &c., but they generally form an upper gallery and admit light to the centre. Here the upper windows admit no light to the choir, the wall of the latter being solid. Possibly this upper chamber may have been used for a scriptorium or similar purpose. Upper stories were frequently employed for writing rooms, as at Arbuthnot and Inchcolm, the room over the chapter house of the latter being the place where Bower wrote his history.
It is remarkable that this north aisle of the choir, or lady chapel, should be entirely separated from the choir by a solid wall in which there never was any opening into the aisle except the small doorway near the east end, which is of first pointed date.[42] This doorway, with its details, is shown in Fig. 514. Whether this aisle was the first part of the structure erected by Bishop Clement in order to be used as a temporary church while the remainder of the cathedral was building, or whether the choir built by him was afterwards rebuilt, the north aisle being left unchanged, it is now impossible to say. That the choir is of later date than the aisle there can scarcely be any doubt; but it does not appear to be of much later date. The same base mouldings are carried round the whole building, and the design of the east end of the choir, with its large central and two narrow side windows (see Fig. 512) and plain pinnacles, shows some features of first pointed character; but both the large window of the east end and those of the south side (see Fig. 511) point to a time about the beginning of the decorated period. The windows of the clerestory on the north side above the roof of the north aisle, with their small buttresses, are, however, of a similar early character to those of the north aisle. Whatever may have been the object in building
a solid wall between the choir and the north aisle, it has evidently been intended, from the size of the east windows and also of those on the south side, to provide sufficient light by them to make up for the want of light from the north. The kind of tracery which filled these windows cannot now be ascertained, but it may have been of the same character as that of the windows of the west end. The tracery, which existed till recently in the choir, was clearly a late restoration. The pinnacles on the south buttresses and the upper part of the choir wall are also of very late date. These have apparently been restored by Bishop Chisholm, whose crest they bear, about the year 1500. It will be observed that the north aisle of the choir stops short by one bay of the length of the choir, so as to allow the presbytery to be lighted, as is usual, by windows on three sides. The choir is 81 feet in length by 28 feet in width within the walls.
We now come to the most beautiful part of the structure, viz., the nave. It measures internally 129 feet in length by 57 feet in width (including the aisles), and is divided into eight bays. The four eastmost bays and the westmost bay are 10 feet in width between the piers, while the three bays next the westmost bay are 12 feet between the piers. A similar difference is observable in the upper part of the structure, which consists of the clerestory, there being no triforium (Fig. 516). The clerestory is constructed with an outer and an inner wall (Fig. 515), having a passage between them in the centre. In the outer wall are the windows, which have two lights formed by a central mullion, with plain splays on the jambs and pointed arch (Fig. 517). The arch head is filled with a form of tracery consisting of a quatrefoil cut in a plain circular panel, being thus an intermediate example between the perforated panel of early first pointed work and the bar tracery of the
decorated period. On the inner side of the clerestory gallery an arcade (see Fig. 515) is more elaborately carried out. Each bay contains two arches forming a continuous arcade, resting on clustered shafts with rounded caps and bases of first pointed style. The arch mouldings are
also of fine bold first pointed form. Of this arcade, four and a-half bays on the north side and four bays on the south side next the east end have the arcade, without central shaft or tracery. The remainder of the clerestory arches on both sides have the opening divided by a central shaft carrying two pointed arches, and the arch head is filled with a quatrefoil cut out of a circular shield like those above described. The western bay (Fig. 518) is exceptional, having one arch with and one without tracery on each side of the nave, the openings without tracery being the east one on the south side and the west one on the north side. It may also be pointed out that the four east bays have ashlar work in the spandrils of the main arches, while the spandrils of the four west bays are filled in with rubble work.
The main piers and arches are all of nearly the same design (Fig. 519). They are set diagonally to the nave, and have four half shafts at the cardinal angles and one intermediate shaft and two square projections between on each side. In the south piers the square angle is cut off these projections, otherwise the plan of the piers is the same. They have all rounded first pointed caps, composed of mouldings over a bell, and the bases are of usual first pointed forms (see Fig. 516).
The west end (Fig. 520) is one of the finest parts of the cathedral. On the ground floor it contains the western doorway (Fig. 521), deeply recessed with a series of shafts and arch mouldings of line first pointed design, flanked by an acutely pointed blind arch on each side with trefoiled head within it. This ground story is surmounted by three lofty pointed windows (see Fig. 520), all of equal height, and each divided into two lights by a central mullion, and having the arch head filled in the central window with a cinquefoil, and in the side windows with a quatrefoil. The windows are all enclosed with a label moulding, having carved terminals. The jambs and arches have plain triple splays (Fig. 522), and the openings in the arch heads are cut out of plain circular shields like the windows of the clerestory. A passage like that of the clerestory runs round in the west wall, and has an inner arcade of clustered shafts, with arch mouldings and tracery similar to those of the clerestory. In the interior arcade the three arch heads are all filled with cinquefoils cut through what is almost a plain shield (Fig. 523). The gable is filled with an elegant vesica piscis (Fig. 524), to which Ruskin draws attention in his Edinburgh Lectures.
The edifice has not been intended to be vaulted. The buttresses of the nave are light (see Fig. 517), and they are finished with plain
gablets. The cornice is supported on a corbel table of pure first pointed design. There is no transept, but an attempt has been made to supply its place by the insertion of large traceried windows in the first bay of the nave next the choir (see Fig. 508). The east window of the south aisle of the nave (see Fig. 511) has the shield over the central mullion carved with a quatrefoil sinking on the inside, but it is not pierced through to the outside, which is left quite plain. The aisles are of very plain design, the windows being somewhat similar to those of the lady chapel, and the buttresses being very plain. Two windows at the west end of the north aisle (Fig. 525) are of peculiar form, having a flat segmental arch and being divided by two mullions. These appear to be a comparatively late alteration. There has been a north porch (see Fig. 525) to the nave, of which only the ruined doorway, with first pointed shafts and arch mouldings, now remains. There is also a plain south doorway in the nave aisle (see Fig. 511).
The north buttress of the west end has been made large so as to contain a wheel stair to the upper galleries (see Plan) of the edifice (see Fig. 517), and in the buttress on the south side of the west doorway a small vaulted chamber has been formed, in which some interesting relics of Celtic times have been preserved, amongst others a stone carved with a Celtic cross, ornamented with a figure like a Greek fret.
As already mentioned, the greater part of the structure is of first pointed date. The lady chapel may be the oldest part (after the tower), and next to it is the east portion of the nave. The western half of the nave seems to have followed soon after the eastern portion, and is carried out nearly after the same design. The transition tracery in the arcade of the clerestory and west end is very interesting, as showing bar tracery in the act of being formed. This could scarcely have occurred in Scotland before the end of the thirteenth century.
The style of the choir is further advanced than the nave, and exhibits some transitional features between first pointed and decorated work. The great east window and the large side windows of the choir probably contained tracery more advanced than that of the west end, and may probably date from the fourteenth century. The pinnacles and parapet are, as already pointed out, of about 1500.
By great good fortune six of the stalls of Dunblane Cathedral with their canopies, and several others without canopies, have escaped the destruction which has overtaken almost all the carved woodwork of our ancient Scottish churches. Those preserved here (Fig. 526) show some excellent carving.
Fig. 524.—Dunblane Cathedral.
Vesica in West Gable.
Fig. 525.—Dunblane Cathedral. North-West Angle of Nave.
These stalls contain on one of the misereres the arms of the Chisholm family, surmounted by a mitre. Three bishops of this name presided in succession at Dunblane. First, James, eldest son of Edmund Chisholm of Cromlix, who was advanced to this see in 1486. In 1527, by reason of his age, he resigned the bishopric in favour of his half-brother, William Chisholm (second), who was consecrated the same year, and was bishop
till his death in 1564. Third, William Chisholm, nephew to the preceding, who was first coadjutor to his uncle, and then his successor. He was forfeited for non-compliance with the new measures both in Church and
State, sometime before the 3rd July 1573, and retired to France, where he died in his old age a Carthusian at Grenoble.
The first of these bishops, James, receives very favourable notice from Bishop Spottiswoode in his History of the Church (Vol. I. p. 215, Spottiswoode Society edition). “A severe censor he was of the corrupted manners of the clergy, and recovered many lands and possessions which were sacrilegiously taken from the Church before his time;” and otherwise he speaks highly of him. The same authority condemns his successor, Bishop William, as “a wicked, vicious man, who, for the hatred he bore to the true religion, made away all the lands of the bishopric, and utterly spoiled the benefice.” Bishop Keith bears the same testimony, saying that “he alienated the Episcopal patrimony of this church to a very singular degree.” The extent to which this alienation went will be best understood from the remark of Bishop Keith regarding the second Bishop William, that he “dilapidated any remains of his bishopric,” clearly implying, as his more detailed account shows, that there was little left to squander.
In these circumstances it is not at all probable that either of the Bishops William would spend money in the adornment of their cathedral. There is therefore no difficulty in concluding that the stalls were provided by Bishop James Chisholm, and that they date between the years 1486 and 1534, the year of his death. Although he resigned in 1527, he retained to himself the administration of “the fruits of the bishopric of Dunblane.”[43]
The carving is very spirited, and full of grotesque figures (see details in Fig. 527). It corresponds in style with the date of Bishop James Chisholm, and has probably been brought from Flanders, where so much
carving of the kind was executed about that time. The lion (Fig. 528) is especially good of its kind. It was taken out of the cathedral during some of the alterations and repairs made on it about the beginning of this century; and at the same time a considerable quantity of carved woodwork was removed and converted into household furniture. Fig. 529 shows some of the carvings on the lower side of the misereres of the stalls which have no canopies.
The cathedral contains a few ancient sculptured monuments. One of these is in the north wall of the choir, and consists of a tomb, under a recessed canopy, containing the effigy of a bishop (Fig. 530), said to be Finley Dermock, who was bishop of the see in the beginning of the fifteenth century. This bishop built the first bridge over the Allan, at Dunblane, which still survives, although widened and improved. The head of the crozier and the right hand which held it have been knocked off; otherwise the effigy is in good preservation. The feet rest against an animal, much mutilated, whose tail runs into a wreath of foliage of first pointed character.
Another episcopal effigy, attired in pontifical vestments and mitre, rests in a tomb (Fig. 531) in the south wall of the eastmost bay of the nave. This is believed to be the monument of Bishop Michael Ochiltree, who occupied the see about the middle of the fifteenth century, and added much to the rich ornaments of the cathedral. The tomb and effigy are evidently of late date, and both are much decayed.
In the north aisle of the nave are preserved two effigies (Fig. 532), said to be those of Malise, eighth Earl of Strathearn, and his countess. The figures are life-size, and are carved in a block of sandstone. “When discovered in the choir, the block was above a coffin of lead, having inscribed on it the date 1271.”[44] The figures, however, are undoubtedly of later date.
The ruins of this priory are situated on a small island of about four acres in extent in the beautiful lake of Menteith. Its retired and peaceful position is well indicated in the name of Inchmahome, which means the Isle of Rest. This secluded situation has to some extent saved the buildings from demolition and the grounds from alteration; so that this venerable priory, surrounded as it is with ancient and gigantic walnut trees, and the remains of the gardens of the monks, has a peaceful and impressive beauty and interest of its own.
But although the church is fairly well preserved, the monastic buildings have not escaped the ordinary causes of destruction so entirely as their situation would have led one to expect.
The adjacent island of Talla is almost entirely covered with the ruins of the castle of the Earls of Menteith,[45] which seems to date mostly from the seventeenth century, and in the construction of which the materials of the suppressed priory, lying so conveniently at hand, were no doubt largely employed. The Earl must also have found the gardens on the island of the abbey convenient, and appropriated them as a pleasure ground.
The instrument authorising the establishment of the priory of Inchmahome still exists. It is given in the name of the Pope by the Bishops of Glasgow and Dunkeld in the year 1238, and authorises a monastery to be built for the religious men already settled in the island. The priory was founded and endowed by Walter Comyn, fourth Earl of Menteith, for monks of the Augustinian order. From the style of its architecture the church evidently belongs to the middle of the thirteenth century. Its details, such as the lofty lancet windows, the nave piers and arches, the western doorway, &c., bear a striking resemblance, on a small scale, to those of the neighbouring cathedral of Dunblane.
The Plan (Fig. 533) shows a choir 66 feet long by 23 feet 8 inches wide internally, without aisles, and with plain lancet windows, without tracery (Fig. 534), those of the east end forming five lights (now built up). The mullions are preserved, but the arched heads are gone.
There is a good sedilia (Fig. 535) and two ambries in the south wall, and on the north side of the choir are the ruins of what seems to have been a sacristy built as a north aisle, with only a door from the church, in the fashion of the north aisle of Dunblane. From the base mouldings being carried round this aisle, it is evidently an original part of the design, and the corbels for the wall plate show that it had a lean-to roof like an ordinary aisle.
The nave is 75 feet in length, and its width varies, being 23 feet 8 inches at the east and 27 feet 2 inches at the west end. This difference seems to have arisen from the south wall having been rebuilt. The nave has a north aisle connected with it by four arches, two of the piers and arches of which are still standing (Fig. 536). The caps, bases, and sections of piers and arch mouldings (Fig. 537) are all good first pointed work. The west doorway is also very fine, and is pretty well preserved (Fig. 538). It comprises a central pointed doorway with deep ingoing, having numerous shafts with moulded caps and bases, and a deep series of first pointed mouldings in the arch head (Fig. 539). On each side of the central doorway are two pointed wall arches with similar caps and mouldings, but with only a shallow recess. The spandrils between the arches contain trefoil and quatrefoil recesses.
There are the remains of a tower at the north-west angle of the nave (Fig. 540), but this has been a later addition. There seems, from the original base course, to have been a tower of some kind here from the first, but it has evidently been rebuilt, and divided into stories, as if for habitation. In this operation the arches of the nave and aisle adjoining, which were originally open, were built up with rubble, but that has now been cleared out again.
On the south side of the choir is situated the chapter house (see Fig. 533), 24 feet in length by 15 feet in width internally. It is vaulted with a semicircular tunnel vault, over which there is a room in the roof (see Fig. 534). The chapter house has a good east window, and there is the usual stone seat all round. An outside staircase led to the upper apartment. The cloisters and cloister garth have been situated to the south of the nave; the corbels for the cloister roof still remain. There is no south aisle, and there are no south windows or buttresses to the nave along what was the cloister walk. To the south of these structures are several remains of the monastic buildings, but much destroyed.
The kitchen and offices at the south end (see Plan) are the best preserved portions, having the fireplace, windows, water drain, &c., and the kitchen is still covered with a plain round tunnel vault, over which there was an upper floor. The refectory probably ran along the south side of the cloister. A staircase near the kitchen led to the dormitory, of which it would form the day access.
There is at first sight a strange confusion amongst the conventual buildings, owing to what turns out, on careful examination, to be a comparatively recent erection built in the middle of them.
The chapter house seems to have been appropriated as a mausoleum by the Earls of Menteith and Airth, and a long avenue has been
constructed and enclosed between two high walls leading up to it. This was, no doubt, erected with the materials of the demolished monastic buildings right through the centre of what was the cloister garth. This enclosure is said to have been erected in haste to receive the remains of Lord Kilpont, son of the first Earl of Menteith and Airth, who was assassinated in the camp of Montrose at Collace, in 1644, by Stewart of Ardvoirlich; a weird Highland story, on which Scott has founded his romance of The Legend of Montrose. The body was sent home to his father, then a State prisoner in his own castle of Talla, and was buried here.
In the choir are the graves of some of the most distinguished men of the families of Comyn, Stewart, Drummond, and Graham, with numerous monuments, much defaced—amongst others, that of Walter Stewart, fifth Earl of Menteith and his Countess (Figs. 541 and 542). The Earl was one of the most historic men of his day. He was present at the battle of Largs, in 1263; he was a witness to the marriage of the Princess Margaret to Eric of Norway, 1281; and he was a distinguished crusader under Louis IX.
Fig. 541.—Inchmahome Priory. Monument of Fifth Earl and Countess of Menteith.
(Drawn from Sketch by Mr. R. B. Armstrong.)
In 1543 Queen Mary, as a child, found refuge here along with her mother after the battle of Pinkie, and she stayed here for some months until a favourable opportunity was found for sending her to France. Dr. John Brown has pointed out that amongst other interesting and suggestive relics in the garden may still be seen what seems to have been the young queen’s miniature or child’s garden—a small flower plot, the boxwood edging of which has now grown up into a thick shrubbery.
Fig. 542.—Inchmahome Priory. Monument of Fifth Earl of Menteith.
(Drawn from Sketch by Mr. R. B. Armstrong.)
At the south side of the island there is a high mound, called the “Nun’s Walk,” about which a romantic and tragic tale is told. This may, however, have been an artificial mote or mound, raised for the purpose of receiving an early wooden castle on its summit. There is a similar mound close to Lincluden College, Dumfriesshire.
This once noble edifice, of which even the remaining fragments are amongst our finest examples of mediæval architecture, stands in the fertile plain of Moray, in the centre of the region which borders the Moray Firth, and is remarkable for the pleasantness and salubrity of its climate. This province was long a subject of contest between the Scottish kings and the Mormaers of Moray. The latter were defeated by Alexander I., and more permanently subdued by David I., who both proceeded to carry out the ecclesiastical policy of their family by founding in this newly-acquired land various religious establishments.
The priory of Urquhart, of which now not a stone remains, was established by David I., near the mouth of the Lossie, in 1125, for Benedictines from Dunfermline; and the abbey of Kinloss, near the Findhorn, was founded, in 1150, for Cistercians from Melrose. The churches of Birnie, Spynie, and Kineddar also come into notice about this period.
The chartulary of the Bishopric of Moray goes no further back than the year 1200, but the see of Moray is believed to have been founded by Alexander I. about 1107, and the bishopric certainly existed in his time.[46] The seat of the bishop, however, was not fixed for a considerable period thereafter, being sometimes at Birnie and other times at Spynie and Kineddar. But in 1203 application was made by Bricius, the sixth bishop to Pope Innocent III., requesting that the site of the cathedral should be fixed, and the Pope decided that it should be settled at Spynie. This situation was, however, found to be too remote, and Pope Honorius was approached for the purpose of having the see changed to the banks of the Lossie, where an extensive and suitable site for the cathedral had been obtained from Alexander II., who was a great patron of Elgin.
The introduction to the Register of the Diocese, p. xii., states that the application for the transference of the see to Elgin was made by Bishop Bricius, though the change did not take place till after his demise. This bishop established a chapter of eight secular canons, and gave the cathedral a constitution founded on the usage of Lincoln, which was ascertained by a special mission to England. Bishop Bricius died in 1222, and was succeeded by Andrew de Moravia, a member of a powerful family in the north. Under him the transference of the Episcopal See to Elgin was effected, and the cathedral of the Holy Trinity was founded in 1224, on the site of an older church with the same dedication. The works proceeded under Bishop Andrew’s supervision during the eighteen remaining years of his life.
Munificent donations were bestowed on the see by the bishop’s family, and through his influence the number of the prebends was increased to twenty-three. It is recorded that Master Gregory, the mason, and Richard, the glazier, were two persons employed on the work.[47]
The edifice was probably well advanced in the course of the thirteenth century, when in 1270, as we are informed by Fordun, the cathedral and the houses of the canons were destroyed by fire. Mr. Billings is of opinion that the most of the structure now remaining was erected after that date. It will, however, be seen that this can scarcely have been the case. In 1390 the building suffered from another great conflagration, caused by Alexander Stewart, son of Robert II., who bore the title of Earl of Buchan, but was better known as the “Wolf of Badenoch.” Having interfered with some of the cathedral lands, and refusing reparation, he was excommunicated by the bishop, and by way of revenge the “Wolf” descended in force from his mountain fastness and plundered Forres and Elgin, reducing the latter town and cathedral to ruins.
It is evident, however, from the style of much of the work which still remains that this catastrophe, terrible as it was, caused only a partial destruction of the cathedral, and it is likely that the previous fire (in 1270), above referred to, was not of so serious a character as this one, the memory of which long lingered in the province as the most terrible disaster ever experienced there. The aged Bishop Bur appealed for redress to the king, and the “Wolf of Badenoch” was not only forced to do penance, but also to contribute largely towards the expense of the restoration of the damage he had caused.[48]
The work of reconstruction proceeded under Bishops Spynie and Innes and other Bishops, and probably lasted during the most of the fifteenth century. At the election of a new bishop in 1414, after the death of Bishop Innes, the canons agreed and made oath that the new bishop about to be elected should bestow one-third of the revenues of the bishopric on the rebuilding of the church until its complete restoration was accomplished. Several parts of the work, such as portions of the west front and the interior of the chapter house, indicate by their architecture that they belong to the fifteenth century. Early in the sixteenth century the central tower showed signs of weakness, and had to be rebuilt in 1538.
Some years before the Reformation the period of decline began. In 1535 Patrick Hepburn, son of the first Earl of Bothwell, was made bishop. Like many of the other Church dignitaries of that period he caused great dilapidation of the ecclesiastical possessions, and almost all the charters of alienation of the cathedral lands were granted by him.[49]
In 1568 the exigencies of the Regent Moray compelled the Privy Council to order the removal of the lead from the roofs of the cathedrals of Aberdeen and Elgin that money might be provided for the soldiers, but the ship which was conveying the lead to Holland for sale sank, and the whole was lost. The roofs were thus left unprotected, and in a great storm which occurred in 1637 the rafters were blown down.
The destruction of the interior soon followed, and was hastened by the action of the General Assembly, which, in 1640, empowered Gilbert Ross, minister of Elgin, and others to break down the timber screen between the nave and choir. Spalding states that the paintings on the rood screen—the Crucifixion on the west side, illuminated with gold stars, and the Day of Judgment on the east side—notwithstanding their exposure for “seven score years,” were still in excellent preservation when the demolition took place.
Next followed the destruction of the tracery of the great west window and other features, which is believed to have been caused by Cromwell’s troops in 1650-60.
By the end of the seventeenth century the double aisles of the nave seem to have disappeared, as they are not shown in Slezer’s view (published in 1693). But the chief catastrophe which overtook the edifice was the fall of the central tower on Easter Sunday, 1711. It fell towards the west, thus overwhelming in its ruin the nave and transepts, and causing their complete destruction. The ruins thereafter became, as usual, the quarry of the district, till, in 1807, by the exertions of Mr. King of Elgin, a wall was built round the enclosure. In 1816 the Barons of Exchequer took possession of the ruins, and appointed as keeper John Shanks, who was an enthusiast in excavating and preserving any ancient sculpture he could discover, and is said to have wheeled out over 3000 barrows of rubbish.
The enclosure which surrounded the precincts of the cathedral was of considerable extent, and comprised within its bounds the houses of the canons and the town house of the bishop. The former are now entirely demolished and the latter is hastening to decay, a large portion having recently fallen.[50] One gate of entrance to the precincts still remains.
Whether we regard the extent and completeness of the arrangement of the buildings or the beauty of the architecture, Elgin Cathedral, when perfect, must have held a place in the first rank of our Scottish ecclesiastical edifices. It was complete in all departments (Fig. 543), having a large nave with double aisles, an extended choir and presbytery, north and south transepts, a lady chapel, and a detached octagonal chapter house. It also possessed a great tower and spire over the