The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 1/3MacGibbon, David
History
The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 1/3
MacGibbon, David
Church architecture -- Scotland
The original entrance is on the south, 17 feet from the exterior west
angle. (Fig. 79.) It is 3 feet 5 inches wide, with a semicircular head
and continuous mouldings of a hollow, ornamented with four-leaved
flowers and a filleted roll, like many of the mouldings in the
cathedral, except as to the flowers. When the street was paved about
thirty years ago the ground was raised, the jambs were covered up 9
inches, two stones were inserted just below the impost and the arch
raised. What the height of the side walls was is not now evident. They
are now about 20 feet above the original floor at the entrance. Probably
the ridge was about 24 feet high.
The east end has no trace of an original window, but a modern one has
been inserted. In the south wall near the east angle is a modern window,
but probably in the place of an original one. The other original windows
cannot be traced. Probably there was a step at 10 feet or 11 feet from
the east end, and perhaps a screen. A few feet east of the entrance
inside was a stoup or piscina (see Fig. 79). In the north wall near the
east angle remains an ambry (see Fig. 79) 1 foot 4¾ inches wide, 2 feet
1 inch high, and 1 foot 3½ inches recessed. The head is an ogee arch
under a hood moulding, and it is flanked by buttresses with finials. The
bottom of this ambry is 5 feet 1 inch above what appears to have been
the original level of the floor. The moulding of this resembles that of
the entrance, except in having no flowers.
In the east wall near the south angle is a smaller ambry, also ogee
headed and less ornate, the bottom of which is 2 feet 6 inches above the
floor. The use of the ogee is very rare in Scotland. The only curves of
that kind in St. Magnus are in fragments of Bishop Tulloch’s tomb.
South of the chapel in what is now the lane were found, in forming the
lane, gravestones and human bones. Close by the chapel was lying, in
1855, a stone, having on it, sculptured in relief, apparently a shield,
under a mitre, but too much defaced to be recognised, and below the
shield, “Robertvs ...,” and a date or letters illegible. Bishop Robert
Reid held the see from 1540 to the Reformation; and as the mouldings
(especially the four-leaved flower and the ogee arch) point to the
fifteenth century, perhaps the chapel may be a late example of the
style, and be assigned to him. His coat of arms is a stag’s head
cabossed.
The parish in which the town of Kirkwall is situated is that of St. Ola,
and it is certain that in this part of the town was the parish church,
dedicated to the great warrior saint of Norway--St. Olaf.
The fact of burials having been made close to this building makes it
probable that this was the parish church; not a chapel of ease or of
private endowment. Of course, this building was not the _first_ parish
church, though it may have occupied the site of the first, and probably
did so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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