Abbeys -- Scotland; Cathedrals -- Scotland; Church architecture -- Scotland
The porch to the latter
buildings is on the other side, and is quaint and well known from
being seen from the church. William Schaw died in 1602, and was
buried in the nave, when the monument to his memory was erected by
order of Queen Anne."[360]
_Paisley Abbey (Renfrewshire)._--In his history of this great abbey, the
Very Rev. Dr. Cameron Lees thus describes its situation:--
"In the heart of the busy town of Paisley stands the Abbey, its
venerable appearance contrasting most strangely with its
surroundings. Many chimneys--so many that it seems impossible to
count them--pour forth their smoke on every side of it; crowds of
operatives jostle past it; heavily laden carts cause its old walls
to tremble; the whirr of machinery and the whistle of the railway
engine break in upon its repose; while within a stone's throw of it
flows the River Cart, the manifold defilements of which have passed
into a proverb. But it is not difficult, even without being
imaginative, to see how beautiful for situation was once the spot
where the Abbey rose in all its unimpaired and stately grace. It
stood on a fertile and perfectly level piece of ground, close by the
Cart, then a pure mountain stream, which, after falling over some
bold and picturesque rocks in the middle of its channel, moved
quietly by the Abbey walls on its course to the Clyde. Divided from
the Abbey by this stream, rose wooded slopes, undulating like waves
of the sea till they reached the lofty ridge called the Braes of
Gleniffer, from the summit of which the lay brother, as he herded
his cattle or swine, could get views of the Argyleshire hills, the
sharp peaks of Arran, and the huge form of Ben Lomond. To the north,
on the other side of the Clyde, were the fertile glades of
Kilpatrick, and beyond, the Campsie range. Gardens and deer parks
girdled the Abbey round; few houses were near except the little
village of dependants on the other side of the stream; and no sound
beyond the precincts broke the solitude, save the wind as it roared
through the beech forest, the bell of a distant chapel, or, on a
calm evening, the chimes of the Cathedral of Saint Mungo, seven
miles away. It was a well-chosen spot, answering in every way the
requirements of the Benedictines, who, we are told, "preferred to
build in an open position at the back of a wooded chain of
hills.""[361]
Paisley illustrates what was said by Dr. Cosmo Innes regarding the
country as a whole.
"Scotland of the twelfth century had no cause to regret the
endowment of a church.... Repose was the one thing most wanted, and
people found it under the protection of the crozier."[362]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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