In the west wall of the tower there is a niche (Fig. 1271) with a canopy and bracket. If it ever was adorned with a figure it is now empty, and the figure has disappeared. Beneath the niche there is a [Illustration: FIG. 1264.--Tullibardine Church. North and South Transepts.] small round opening, a kind of spy hole or shot hole from the tower, which was doubtless a place of security. [Illustration: FIG. 1265.--Tullibardine Church. Interior, looking South-East. We have to thank Mr. T. S. Robertson for assistance in connection with this Sketch.] [Illustration: FIG. 1266.--Tullibardine Church. Window in West Gable.] [Illustration: FIG. 1267. Tullibardine Church. Jamb of Transept Arch.] [Illustration: FIG. 1268.--Tullibardine Church. Ambry at East End of South Wall.] [Illustration: FIG. 1269.--Tullibardine Church. Arms on Exterior of North Transept.] [Illustration: FIG. 1270.--Tullibardine Church. Skew Stone.] [Illustration: FIG. 1271. Tullibardine Church. Niche in Tower.] COLLEGIATE CHURCH, MAYBOLE. The ancient town of Maybole, which is situated on the side of a hill about nine miles south from Ayr, was formerly the capital of Carrick, and contained the castle of the Earl of Cassillis[131] and the town houses of the lairds of the district. Being within two miles of Crosraguel Abbey and having a collegiate establishment within the town, the ecclesiastical [Illustration: FIG. 1272.--Maybole Collegiate Church. Plan.] element would not be wanting in the society of the place. At the Reformation the house of the provost was the scene of a celebrated debate between John Knox and Quentin Kennedy, Abbot of Crosraguel, in September 1561. The college stands on gently sloping ground near the base of the hill on which the town is situated, and is now enclosed within the streets. In 1371 a chapel was founded in Maybole by Sir John Kennedy of Dunure, and endowed for one clerk and three chaplains. This was probably the earliest foundation of the kind established in Scotland, but it had many successors as collegiate churches in the following century. [Illustration: FIG. 1273.--Maybole Collegiate Church. View from South-West.] In Abercrummie’s description of Carrick,[132] written in the end of the seventeenth century, the collegiate church is mentioned as being still entire, “being now used as the burial-place of the Earl of Cassillis, and other gentlemen who contributed to the putting of a roofe upon it, when it was decayed.” It is further mentioned that the “Colledge consisted of a rector and three prebends, whose stalls are all of them yet extant, save the rector’s.” The houses or “stalls” of the prebends are now all gone, and the church is again roofless. The freestone has been taken away from many of the buttresses, and the tracery of the windows is broken and most of the windows built up.