The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 3/3MacGibbon, David
History
The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 3/3
MacGibbon, David
Church architecture -- Scotland
have recently been excavated in the ground eastward from St. Leonard’s
Church, from which it appears that it was a hall with central nave and
two side aisles. The building was afterwards converted into a nunnery.
In 1512 it was appropriated for a college.
[Illustration: FIG. 1390.--Church of St. Leonard’s College, St. Andrews.
South Side.]
This college was founded by John Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrews, in
conjunction with Archbishop Alexander Stewart. It remained under the
authority of the prior and chapter, and was designed for the education
of twenty-four poor students. The college, however, soon became famed
for its learning, and was attended by sons of the nobility. The students
were specially instructed in music, and helped to spread a knowledge of
sacred music throughout the country. George Buchanan, the well-known
scholar, was at one time Principal.
The chapel (Fig. 1389) is a simple oblong chamber, being, internally,
about 80 feet in length by 20 feet 6 inches in width, and has no
division between chancel and nave. The design of the windows and
buttresses (Fig. 1390) accords well with the date of erection in the
sixteenth century, being in the perpendicular style, such as is common
in the colleges in England. The windows are all square-headed, and the
three-light ones have the heads of the lights cusped like quatrefoils.
The church appears, from the marks in the walls, to have been extended
24 feet at the east end, probably at the time when it was converted into
the college.
On the north side of the church is a room with a round barrel vault,
probably the sacristy. From the door of the sacristy a narrow passage
runs along the east end of the church in the thickness of the wall, and
from it there are two loops into the church. Above this passage, and
also in the thickness of the wall, another narrow passage is constructed
in the east wall, which is continued round in the north wall as far as
the vault of the sacristy extends. There is a shallow piscina in the
east window sill. The west end has a door in the centre, and three
remarkable niches above it. They have the appearance of having been
placed there in recent times, when the west end was rebuilt. The arms of
Prior Hepburn are inserted in this wall, and they are also carved on one
of the south buttresses.
There are no windows in the north wall, but the interior contains
several good Renaissance monuments. In the floor is the flat tombstone
of John Wynram, Superintendent of Fife, who died in 1582; and against
the north wall is the monument of Robert Stewart, Earl of March, who was
commendator of the priory after the Regent Moray’s death.
The church was for long used for public worship, but after the College
of St. Leonards was united to that of St. Salvator in 1747, the former
was abandoned in 1759.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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