The buildings of Fearn Abbey having fallen into disrepair, Robert Cairncross, Bishop of Ross (1539-45) was appointed abbot of Fearn, being recommended by the king to the Pope, on the understanding that the bishop, who was wealthy, would be able to restore the abbey. Bishop Cairncross also held several other appointments, being Provost of Corstorphine, Abbot of Holyrood, and chaplain to James V. He resigned the abbacy in 1545, and died soon after. Nicholas Ross, provost of the Collegiate Church of Tain, held the abbacy, possibly as a secular charge, seeing that, in 1560, he sat in Parliament, and voted for the abolition of the Roman Catholic religion. The last commendator was Walter Ross of Morangy; but he was only titular, for in 1597 the lands of the abbey were erected into the temporal Barony of Geanies, and granted by James V. to his favourite, Sir Patrick Murray. Some of the church lands were, as usual, feued off to relatives of the abbots. Abbot Walter Ross procured a grant in his own favour of Morangy and the mills thereof, which remained with his family for several generations. The church continued to be used as the parish place of worship, and in 1742, during divine service, the vaulted roof fell, when about fifty people were killed.[191] Of this extensive and richly-furnished abbey there now only remain a part of the church and the ruins of some structures attached to it. The church is a simple oblong chamber (Fig. 935), 96 feet long by 26 feet wide internally. Part of it is still used as the parish church, but the eastern end is partitioned off and set apart as the burial-vault of the family of Ross of Balnagown. After the fall of the roof last century, the south wall of the church was to a great extent rebuilt, a new roof put on, and the interior plastered. The eastern portion, with the exception of the building up of some of the windows and the reconstruction of the gable, has been left intact. The chapels, or “aisles,” attached to the church have been erected against the original walls, as is evident from the remains of windows still visible, which are built up. The features of the church are extremely simple (Fig. 936). The windows are all tall lancets. In the east gable there are four of these all of equal height, and the walls have been pierced with similar lights, in pairs, between all the buttresses round the walls. Some of these remain in the north wall (see Fig. 936), and in the south wall (which has been remodelled and partly rebuilt, with large windows inserted) some portions of the old lancets can yet be traced. [Illustration: FIG. 935.--Fearn Abbey. Plan.]