Page:The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/228

 rendered unavoidable by the barrel vault of the interior, which required the arches of the windows to be kept below the springing of the main vault, as may be observed at Ladykirk, Seton Church, and elsewhere. In the churches of Linlithgow and Stirling the central window of the apse is larger than the others, but in those cases the vaulting is different, and allows greater height for the windows. The parapet above the walls of the choir is plain and rests on a string course, which has been carved with foliage. The doorway in the south side (Fig. 1131) is round arched, and in the freedom of the treatment of its details very much resembles what is found in the neighbouring Church of Rosslyn.

—The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. The Eastern Apse.

The buttresses (Fig. 1132), like those of Rosslyn, are massive, and although they have five or six stages, they do not recede at these stages till the wall head is nearly reached, where they are finished with a gablet beneath which a large gargoyle is projected. The buttresses were crowned with square pinnacles, finished with crockets and finials, only two of which now remain, in a very ruinous state. They have been carefully wrought on the inside, so as to adjust themselves to the sloping flanks of the stone roof, the water from which was conveyed through the buttresses by the projecting gargoyles to the ground. There is a canopied niche on the face of all the buttresses, as well as those on each side of the south doorway.