The chancel is 14 feet 11 inches by 9 feet 5½ inches inside; the side walls 2 feet 9 inches thick, and the east wall about the same. It is roofed with a plain barrel vault, of which the semicircular chancel arch forms part. (See Fig. 101.) The impost of this arch is 5 feet from the floor of the nave. Probably there was a step here or a little farther east. The pressure of the vault has forced out the jambs of the arch (that is, the side walls), and given the arch a horse-shoe form. Dr. Wilson lays some stress on this peculiarity of form, taking it to be intentional, but it is purely the result of lateral pressure. The east end has no window. On the north is a window 1 foot 7½ inches high and 11 inches wide at the outside, with a semicircular head, below the impost of the vault. The jambs are splayed inward to 2 feet 1 inch in width, without an external chamfer. On the south is a similar window. (Fig. 102.) Probably, like the nave windows, they were not originally glazed. Over the vault of the chancel is a chamber, entered from the nave by a semicircular arch 6 feet 4 inches high and 2 feet 2 inches wide, over the chancel arch. (See Fig. 101.) [Illustration: FIG. 101.--Church on Egilsey. West and East Elevations.] It is lit by a flat-headed window in the east end, 1 foot 6 inches high. This probably served as a depository for books, muniments, &c. It is called by the country people “Grief House,” and supposed to have been a prison, &c. The side walls of this chamber are 2 feet 4½ inches thick, and the east wall 2 feet 7½ inches. The ridge of the chancel roof was 20 feet 9 inches above the floor of the nave. [Figs. 103, 104 show the appearance of the building from south-east and north-west.] It remains too approximate to the date of this church. There was a church in Egilsey when St. Magnus was murdered in 1110. The attaching so large a tower to the church tends to show that this was a church of a superior order when it was built. The style of architecture (Figs. 103, 104) (discarding certain indications of an earlier date) prevents our assigning to it a later date than the beginning of the twelfth century. When we contrast it with the Kirkwall Cathedral, begun in 1137, we are forced to give an earlier date than that to Egilsey. This opinion is corroborated by the churches at Orphir and the Brough of Birsa. The islands were conquered by the Norsemen in 876, and reconverted to Christianity in 998. The church, therefore, was probably not built between those dates. There were Christians in these islands before the arrival of the Norsemen. The name of the island, as [Illustration: FIG. 102.--Church on Egilsey. South Elevation.] before mentioned, is evidence that there was a church of distinction in Egilsey when they arrived.