Page:The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/315

 the canopied stalls occupying each side of the choir. Owing to the circumstance of the nave having been fitted up as a library, the ancient arrangement of the screen with its rood loft, ambone, and altars on the nave side were destroyed. Dr. Macpherson, in the paper already referred to, has by illustrations and description traced its original construction, and to this the reader is referred.

The tower at the south-west corner (Fig. 1211) is not quite square, measuring over the walls about 29 feet from north to south, and about 4 feet less from east to west. It has massive corner buttresses, with numerous stepped intakes towards the top, similar to the buttresses of the chapel, being a style of buttress of very frequent occurrence in Scottish late churches, as, for example, at Stirling Church. The tower is finished with one of the few crown steeples remaining in Scotland, being, with that of St. Giles', Edinburgh, and the Tolbooth, Glasgow, the only three surviving of those which we could at one time boast. The general style of the structure is very similar to that of St. Giles', but in this case there are only four arches thrown from the angles of the tower to the central lantern (Fig. 1213), while in the case of St. Giles' there are eight, which produce a fuller and richer effect. The tower (see Fig. 1211) is about 63 feet in height to the top of the battlements. From that point to the base of the lantern pillars (Fig. 1212) is about 15 feet 9 inches, from whence to the top of the cross is about 20 feet. The total height is thus about 99 feet.

The upper part of the steeple was blown down in a violent storm on 7th February 1633. Spalding, under that date, says:—"This hideous winds was marked to be such, as the like had never been seen here in these parts, for it would overturn countrymen's houses to the ground, and some persons suddenly smo'red within, without relief. It also threw down the stately crown bigged of curious eslar work, off the steeple of King's College of Old Aberdeen, whilk was thereafter re-edified and built up, little inferior to the first." The part blown down was probably only the lantern on the top of the four arches, the details of this part having a decidedly Renaissance character, and being different from the other parts of the tower. Doubtless the arches themselves would suffer in the crash, and would require repairing and rebuilding in part, which was evidently done, as the date 1634 is carved on the soffit of the crossing. This difference of detail is interesting, as showing how persistently these old designers wrought in the style of their time. Although it is evident that the present lantern is not quite the same as the original one, it must be admitted to be an extremely happy and picturesque composition.