The Cathedrals of Great Britain: Their History and ArchitectureDitchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson)
History
The Cathedrals of Great Britain: Their History and Architecture
Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson)
Cathedrals -- Great Britain; Church architecture -- Great Britain
Of the once great Cathedral of St. Andrew, the Primatical See of
Scotland, few traces are left. Its consecration in the time of Robert
Bruce was marked by unparalleled pomp and circumstance. All the most
distinguished in Church and State were present, no less than seven
bishops and fifteen abbots, the king and well-nigh all the flower of
his nobility. It was originally founded by Bishop Arnold (1159-1162).
Its plan was cruciform, and was 355 feet in length, and the nave 200
feet, and there was a Lady Chapel at the east end. It had a grand
central tower, and six turrets, of which three remain. A fire partly
destroyed it in 1378, but it was restored and embellished, and
finished in 1440. In 1559 John Knox preached a fiery sermon in the
town church, which led the magistrates and inhabitants of the city to
plunder the Cathedral and strip it of its altars and ornaments. The
whole church was ransacked and left to fall into ruin. Soon the
central tower fell, and carried with it the north wall; and since then
the church has been used as a quarry. The ruins are picturesque in
their decay. All that remain are the east and west gables, part of
the south wall of the nave and the west wall of the south transept.
The style of these ruins is partly Norman and partly Early English.
Under the east window, built up in the wall, is a curious Runic
inscription. The Castle at St. Andrews is closely connected with the
Cathedral, as it was built by Bishop Roger in the thirteenth century
as an episcopal residence. The old Castle was destroyed in the
fourteenth century, and soon afterwards rebuilt. Here Cardinal Beaton
was murdered, who had witnessed the burning of Wishart in front of his
Castle. The Bottle Dungeon is a curious place of incarceration, and,
besides the towers and walls, there is an interesting subterranean
passage which enabled persons to escape from the Castle in time of
siege.
ST. GILES' CATHEDRAL, EDINBURGH
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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