Page:The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/511

 5 inches wide with a slight chamfer on the edge, and with the opening on the inside splayed out to 3 feet 5 inches wide. An ambry occupies the usual position in the north wall. Both of the end walls have a set-off at the level of the eaves, as shown by Fig. 1445. The projecting eaves course and this set-off coincide, and their splays are very simply worked out (see Fig. 1446). The belfry on the west gable is a pre-Reformation example of a type which became very common in Presbyterian times. Below the belfry there is a small splayed slit with a segmental arched lintel. The east gable is terminated with a cross with a massive gableted base.

COUPAR ABBEY,.

Of this once great abbey almost nothing remains. The present parish church stands partly on the site of the monastic church, and the conventual buildings, with the cloister garth, occupied the ground which now forms the churchyard, at the south corner of which is the gateway with the

—Coupar Abbey.

Gateway.

angle buttress shown in Fig. 1447. This small fragment is the only piece of building, properly so called, which exists. It comprises a plain opening 6 feet wide by about 7 feet high, leading through a wall about 9 feet thick, and at the corner it is flanked by a massive angle buttress. The ruin rises to a height of about 25 to 30 feet, and stands about 70 yards south from the church.

The churchyard extends for a distance of about 400 feet from east to west, by about 280 feet from north to south, and these dimensions in all probability give an idea of the extent of ground formerly occupied by the monastery, and which is believed to have been the site of a Roman camp.

The monastery was founded by Malcolm in 1164, and was the sixth in the order of construction of the thirteen Cistercian Abbeys in Scotland. William the Lion granted a site for the abbey of