“Under the third head it is queried whether the ‘_Norman_ builders’ were likely to show such tender mercy to a rubble fragment? I presume ‘Norman’ here means _Anglo_-Norman, the conquering race, who looked with contempt on all that pertained to those they held in thrall. Civil changes notwithstanding, in Bute it was otherwise. There the same traditions were handed down from Celt to Scot, and the name of St. Blaan was reverenced, not merely on local grounds, but as being still more intimately associated with a northern see. The very curious _melange_ at the east end of the chapel is attributed to one of those ‘accidents’ which, from a variety of sources, often befel buildings in ancient times. The late Mr John Baird, at a meeting of the Architectural Institute of Scotland held in Glasgow a good many years ago, suggested that the original termination had been an apse, but the chancel being found too small, this feature was demolished and the building extended to its present limits. Notwithstanding all that has been said, I consider both the apse and the accident theories to be at once untenable and unnecessary, and will, as briefly as possible, give three _criteria_ on which I regard the proof of antecedency in date and construction of the rubble work ultimately to depend, and to be incontrovertible. First, in a rubble wall of any posterior date, built to conjoin with a previous ashlar one, it is only reasonable to suppose it would have been gauged to the same thickness, so that the respective wall faces might be flush, both externally and internally, so as to avoid the very awkward junction which there really has been. Second, this rubble wall must necessarily have been carried to the same height and level, in the wall-head, as the ashlar built portion, instead of being dropped nearly three feet below it, as the present rubble work really is. Third, the existing Romanesque structure shows that freestone, both red and white, was readily to be had by importation or otherwise in Bute, during the twelfth century, and ever afterwards, and it is beyond all reason and experience, that in the chancel especially rubble of some local rock should have been adopted when the superior quality previously in use could be so easily obtained. “These three _criteria_ combined, the thinness (relatively) of the rubble walling, the lower level of the wall-head, and the extreme improbability of any subsequent builders being reduced to the necessity of falling back on rubble, lead irresistibly to the conviction that on this site there existed a much smaller and more ancient chapel, of which the _sacrarium_, carefully respected by all subsequent builders, now alone remains.”