The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 2/3MacGibbon, David
History
The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 2/3
MacGibbon, David
Church architecture -- Scotland
[Illustration: FIG. 591.--St. Mungo’s Cathedral. Transverse Section
through Choir and Lower Church, looking East.]
To accomplish this, with arches of about the same width as those of the
side aisles, the wall had to be divided into two bays having a central
pillar, which is not a pleasing feature. Above the main arcade rises the
east wall of the cathedral, pierced with four graceful lancets (see Fig.
591).[65] This arrangement of a central mullion in the large upper
window was almost rendered necessary in order to carry up the design of
the single pillar in the centre of the main arcade, otherwise a central
light, as at Salisbury, would doubtless have been preferable.
Churches with an eastern ambulatory are occasionally to be met with in
England, a fine example being the church of the Abbey of Dore, in
Hertfordshire. This ambulatory aisle is the British equivalent for the
aisle which is generally carried round foreign apses, and from which the
apsidal chapels open.
A similar plan to that of the eastern end of Glasgow Cathedral was
reproduced at Rosslyn Collegiate Church two hundred years later,
although with very different details and on a greatly reduced scale.
Each bay of the choir (see Fig. 589) rises from clustered pillars having
numerous attached shafts and mouldings (see Fig. 587), and caps
elaborately carved with first pointed foliage. The triforium gallery
contains two pointed openings, each embracing two smaller arches, and
having trefoil and quatrefoil apertures in the spandrils. The clerestory
consists of a double wall, with passage between. It has three pointed
lights of equal height in the outer wall, and three corresponding
openings in the interior, with boldly moulded shafts and arches. A small
sharply pointed arch is introduced at each side of the main vaulting
shafts. The caps on each floor are all of rounded form.
The south doorway of the nave (Fig. 591) (now forming the principal
entrance to the church) is, like that of the lower church, inserted
between two buttresses; but it has no projecting porch, and finishes
with a flat roof, above which the top of an ordinary traceried window is
seen in the plane of the wall. To give importance to this entrance the
flanking buttresses are finished at the top with niches for statues, and
in connection with the corbels under these occur the only pieces of
foliaged carving to be seen in the whole nave.
The western doorway (see Fig. 569) contains two openings with a solid
mullion between. This part of the structure has evidently been greatly
repaired and altered when the western adjuncts above referred to were
removed.
The whole of the cathedral is vaulted except the central alleys of the
nave and choir. Vaulting shafts are carried up in the nave (Fig. 592)
from the string course above the main arcade, and in the choir (see Fig.
589) from the caps of the main piers to the wall head, as if the idea of
vaulting the central area had been contemplated; but it is quite
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