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 windows and doors on the north side of the nave and chancel are
higher than on south side, owing to the slope of the ground.
The chancel is 12 feet 8 inches by 8 feet 9 inches inside, set out
symmetrically with the nave. (See Fig. 83.) When it was made domestic a
doorway was cut in the north wall. For some reason the upper part of the
south wall was pulled down, and a casing put _outside_ the lower part. A
fireplace and chimney were made in the east wall, and a new face put
outside the whole east end, including the added piece on the south, for
no break or juncture is visible outside the east end. On the north is
one window 2 feet by 1 foot clear, with splayed jambs, but no freestone
dressings, and no external chamfer.[126] To the east of it is a small
ambry. The window and ambry on the north are on a higher level than on
the south.
When the casing was added on the south, the window was shifted out, or a
lintel put in the added piece. Red freestone quoins and two sills (or
possibly one, a square head) are lying near, and the jambs of the south
window are much broken. Probably this sill, jamb stones, and head formed
the south window, and are cotemporary with the chancel arch, having,
perhaps, supplanted a window like that on the north.
Outside the south door of nave is a square addition, measuring 8 feet 1
inch by 7 feet 7 inches inside, now only 6 feet high, containing a
radiating stair of five freestone steps. (See Fig. 83.) The west wall of
it is 3 feet, and the south and east 2 feet 3 inches. There is no
evidence of what this was, or led to, but the building certainly is
ecclesiastical by the character of the work. The entrance to it from
outside is on the east. Perhaps the stair led to a priest’s room or
parvise over the porch, which, however, must have been very small; or it
led to a bell turret. There are several jamb stones of red freestone
belonging to a doorway lying about, and one (apparently in its proper
position) is in the jamb of the outer entrance of this porch. (Fig. 88.)
This makes it probable that this building is cotemporary with chancel
arch. The red freestone window jambs, above mentioned, may have come out
of this porch. Whatever the upper part of this porch was, the roof must
have been higher than the eaves of the nave.
Plaster, apparently ancient, remains on the south wall of chancel lower
part--on jambs of north window of chancel on east side of the chancel
arch in the ambry on north side of the nave.
The roof was either of tie-beam arrangement, or of rafters coupled
half-way up and covered with stone slates, or “divots.” The ridge of the
nave roof was about 18 feet above sill of west arch.
The general history may be thus conjectured. In the eleventh or twelfth
century a chapel was built of nave and chancel at the east end of the
nave, and an entrance in the west end of the nave. In the fourteenth
[Illustration: FIG. 88.--Church, Enhallow, Orkney. Details.]
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