In 1483 David Menzis, elder, was master of the kirk work, and purchased a boat load of lime for the building, and in the following year “Maistre Johne Gray, mason,” was appointed “to the bigging of Sanct Nicolace wark.” He engaged to work in his own person, and to superintend the masons and other workmen. He was “to be lele and trew to the said wark for al the dais of his life, unto the completing and ending of the same” (p. 41). It would appear that there were but few skilled workmen employed in the building, as only some five or six men are mentioned by name in the register. They are frequently referred to, and appear to have been bound to remain at the building during the pleasure of the Council. In the same year that Gray was appointed the feeing of a single mason was a matter of so much importance as to occupy a whole sitting of the Town Council and “diuerse of the communite” (p. 41), and in the year following (1493) three masons were sent to Cowie (a few miles south from Aberdeen) to work there for a year quarrying stones for the church. The shifts and expedients to find funds for the building run through all the deliberations of the Council. In 1495 about fifty [Illustration: FIG. 396.--St. Nicholas’ Church. Carved Bench End.] citizens advanced the money “to pay Johne Ferdour for the making of the roff and tymmir of the queyr” (p. 56), and in 1500 a contribution of “salmond and money” was made for lead for the church. This offering was not sufficient, and we find other negotiations had to be gone into to raise funds, and it was not till 1510 that they were able to order the master of the kirk work, George Bisset (a new master), to “cause the plumbar to pass and ende his werk, and theik the body of thar kirk with leide” (p. 80), and at last, in 1513, a gilded “weddercok” is set up on “Sanct Nicholace stepill.” COLDINGHAM PRIORY, BERWICKSHIRE. The picturesque village of Coldingham, with the remains of its ancient priory, lies in a small valley about 3½ miles eastward from Reston Railway Station, and within a mile of the sea. The great precipice of St. Abb’s Head, overlooking the German Ocean, is only a few miles off. It is believed that Ebba, daughter of the Northumbrian King Ethelfrid, and sister of King Oswy, in the bright days of that kingdom, about the middle of the seventh century, founded the monastery of _Urbs Coludi_, or Coldingham. There Ethelrida, Queen of Egfrid, took the veil, and she afterwards founded the church and monastery of Ely, of which she became abbess.[194] The Convent of Coldingham was several times sacked by the Danes, and after its destruction by them in 870, it remained desolate till it was restored in 1098 for a colony of Benedictines. [Illustration: FIG. 397.--Coldingham Priory. Plan.]