Page:The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/102

 of there ever having been an upper floor or an access stair, and the considerable height, as viewed from the inside, has an unmeaning appearance. The resemblance between this porch and the south porch of St. Michael's, Linlithgow, is striking, both having the inner crow-stepped gable built on the aisle wall. In the latter porch the upper room has been completed.

St. Machar's Cathedral.

Top of West Windows.

The north aisle wall of the cathedral, which is fortunately not so well seen as the south wall, is quite modern, and has a mean and paltry appearance.

The pillars in the nave (see Fig. 1005) are all round on Plan, with round moulded caps and very simple bases. These are shown in section in Fig. 1005, and also on a larger scale in Fig. 1010, which contains Scougal's monument (afterwards referred to), and where there is also a view of part of the interior of the large west window. Beside the sketch of this monument will be seen a stone containing the arms, surmounted by a mitre, probably of Bishop Stewart, who died in 1565 (a fesse chequé debruised by a bend engrailed).

In the view of the interior (see Fig. 1005) it may be observed that the full thickness of the clerestory walls does not come down to the caps of the pillars, but stops short a few feet above. This arrangement has an unpleasing effect in perspective, leaving a portion of the cap projecting and bearing nothing. The two piers at the crossing, as already mentioned, are of freestone and are of clustered form, and have richly carved capitals. These capitals are necessarily concealed by the building up of the arches, which lead from the nave to the crossing. Fig. 1011 shows a part of one of these capitals, which can be seen from the transept.

Regarding the choir nothing can be now said from observation, as it was destroyed in 1560, and the ruins have since been entirely removed. Alluding to this, Orme says (p. 104)—"The glorious structure of said Cathedral Church being near nine score years in building, did not remain twenty entire, when it was almost ruined by a crew of sacrilegious church robbers."

There was an old choir standing in Bishop Elphinston's time, early in the sixteenth century, which, as Boece tells us in his life of that prelate, was considered by the bishop to be in a style unworthy such a church, and he began to rebuild it on a plan corresponding with the western part of the building; "but lest he should die before it was completed, he would not take down the old choir till everything was in readiness to begin the new one, so that a considerable part was finished before his death." The work was continued by his successors, but it seems doubtful if it ever was entirely completed before the Reformation burst on the country.

The building of the central steeple, which had been partly carried out