CHAPTER IV.ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTLAND.

CONTENTS.

Affinities of Style—Early Specimens—Cathedral of Glasgow—Elgin—Melrose—Other Churches—Monasteries.

CHRONOLOGY.

Thereare few countries in the world in respect to whose architecture it is so difficult to write anything like a connected narrative as it is regarding that of Scotland. The difficulty does not arise from the paucity of examples, or from their not having been sufficiently examined or edited, but from the circumstance of the art not being indigenous. No one who knows anything of the ethnography of art would suspect the people who now inhabit the lowlands of Scotland of inventing any form of architecture, or of feeling much sympathy with it when introduced from abroad. It may have been that the Celtic element was more predominant in the country during the Middle Ages, and that the Teutonic race only came to the surface with the Reformation, when they showed their national characteristic in their readiness to destroy what they could not build. If this were not so, it must have been that their priests were strangers, who brought their arts with them and practised them for their own satisfaction, in despite of the feelings of their flocks.

Briefly, the outline of Scotland’s architectural story seems to be this. Till the time of the wars of the Edwards, the boundary line between the styles on either side of the border cannot be very clearly defined. In Scotland the forms were ruder and bolder than in the South, but were still the same in all essential respects.

After the days of Wallace and of Bruce, hatred of the English threw the Scotch into the arms of France. Instead of the Perpendicular style of the South, we find an increasing tendency to copy theFlamboyant and other contemporary styles of France, till at last, just as the style was expiring, both churches and mansions are almost literal copies of French designs. But, in addition to these, an Irish element is strongly felt: at Iona and throughout the West, extending in exceptional cases to the east, as at Brechin and Abernethy. It can also be traced in the Lothians in the chapels and smaller edifices of the 11th and 12th centuries, and seems to be the ingredient which distinguishes the early Round-arched Gothic of Scotland from the Norman of England. Besides these three, a Scandinavian element makes itself felt in the Orkneys, and as far south as Morayshire; and even Spain is said to have contributed the design to Roslyn Chapel, and made her influence felt elsewhere.

All these foreign elements, imported into a country where a great mass of the people belonged to an art-hating race, tended to produce an entanglement of history very difficult to unravel. With leisure and space, however, it might be accomplished; and, if properly completed, would form a singularly interesting illustration, not only of the ethnography of Scotland, but of art in general.

The buildings of David I. (1124-1165) gave an immense impulse to the round-arched style, which continued for nearly a century after his time, and long after the pointed arch had been currently used in the South. It is true we find pointed arches mixed up with it, as at Jedburgh, but the pillars and capitals are those of the earlier orders; and the circular arch continued to be used from predilection whenever the constructive necessities of the building did not suggest the employment of the pointed form.

The feature of English art which the Scotch seem to have best appreciated was the lancet window, which suited their simple style so completely that they clung to it long after its use had been abandoned in England. This circumstance has given rise to much confusion in the dates of Scottish buildings, antiquaries being unwilling to believe that the lancet windows of Elgin and other churches really belong to the middle of the 14th century, after England had passed through the phases of circle and flowing tracery, and was settling down to the sober constructiveness of the perpendicular.

Circle tracery is, in fact, very little known in the North, and English flowing tracery hardly to be found in all Scotland. It is true that a class of flowing tracery occurs everywhere in Scotland, but it is, both in form and age, much more closely allied to French Flamboyant than to anything English. It was used currently during the whole period between the 2nd and 3rd Richards, and even during the Tudor period of England.

The one great exception to what has been said is the east window of the border monastery of Melrose; but even here it is not English Perpendicular, but an original mode of treating an English idea, foundonly in this one instance, and mixed up with the flowing tracery of the period.

Of Tudor architecture there is no trace in Scotland; neither the four-centred low arch nor fan-vaulting are to be found there, nor that peculiar class of perpendicular tracery which distinguished the 16th and 17th centuries in the South. At that period the Scotch still adhered to their Flamboyant style, and such attempts as they did make at Perpendicular work were so clumsy and unconstructive that it is little wonder that, like the French, they soon abandoned it.

In so poor and thinly-populated a country as Scotland was in the 11th century, it would be in vain to look for any of the great ecclesiastical establishments that are found in the South. The churches seem at this age to have been cells or small chapels, such as that at Leuchars or Dalmeny, closely resembling St. Clement’s church at Trondhjem, and a little larger than the contemporary edifices so frequently found in Ireland.

869. Window, Leuchars. (From a Drawing by R. W. Billings.[117])

Leuchars is perhaps the most characteristic and beautiful specimen of its class, of which, like the contemporary chapel at Cashel, which it much resembles, it may be considered as the type. Its details arenot only rich, but, as may be seen from the woodcut, bold and elegant at the same time. Both internally and externally, the ornament is applied in so masterly a manner that the beauty of the art makes up for the smallness of dimensions, and renders it one of the most interesting churches in Scotland.

870. Pier-Arch, Jedburgh.

David I. seems to have been the first king who gave an impulse to the monastic establishments and to the building of larger churches. His endowment of the great border abbeys, and his general patronage of the monks, enabled them to undertake buildings on a greatly extended scale. The churches of Jedburgh and Kelso, as we now find them, belong either to the very end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century. They display all the rude magnificence of the Norman period, used in this instance not experimentally, as was too often the case in England, but as a well-understood style, whose features were fully perfected. So far from striving after novelty, the Scotch architects were looking backwards, and culling the beauties of a long-established style. The great arch under the tower of Kelso is certainlya well-understood example of the pointed-arched architecture of the 13th century, while around it and above it nothing is to be seen but circular-headed openings, combined generally with the beaded shafts and the foliage of the Early English period. The whole is used with a Doric simplicity and boldness which is very remarkable. Sometimes, it must be confessed, this independence of constraint is carried a little too far, as in the pier-arches at Jedburgh (Woodcut No.870), which are thrown across between the circular pillars without any subordinate shaft or apparent support. This was a favourite trick of the later Gothic architects of Germany, though seldom found at this early period. Here the excessive strength of the arch in great measure excuses it.

871. Arches in Kelso Abbey.

Besides the general grandeur of their designs, a great deal of the detail of these abbeys is of the richest and best class of the age. The favourite form, as at Leuchars, is that of circular arches intersecting one another, so as to form pointed sub-arches, and these are generally ornamented with all the elaborate intricacy of the period, such as is shown in Woodcut No.871, taken from Kelso Abbey Church.

While these great abbeys were being erected in the southern extremity of the kingdom, the cathedral of St. Magnus was founded at the other extremity, at Kirkwall in the Orkneys. This building was commenced 1137, and carried on with vigour for some time. The first three arches of the choir (Woodcut No.872) are all that can certainlybe identified as belonging to that period. The arch of the tower belongs probably to the 14th century, and the vaulting can hardly be much earlier. The three arches beyond this are still circular, though with mouldings of a late period. It is said that these were not completed till the 16th century.

872. Plan and three Bays of Choir, Kirkwall Cathedral.

Farther south, arches of this late age could not have been built in such an ancient style, but we can believe that in that remote corner the old familiar modes were retained in spite of changing fashion; and the consequence is that, though the building of this cathedral was carried on at intervals during 400 years, it is at first sight singularly uniform in style, and has all the characteristics of an old Norman building, as may be seen from the woodcut.

873. North Side of the Cathedral at Kirkwall.

The cathedral of Glasgow (Woodcut No.878) is almost the onlyother of the great ecclesiastical edifices of Scotland which retains its original features in a nearly perfect state. It is at the same time one of the most satisfactory and characteristic buildings to be found in the country.

874. 1. Plan of Glasgow Cathedral.2. Plan of Crypt, Glasgow Cathedral. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.(From J. Collie’s Description of this Church.)

The bishopric was founded by David I., but it was not till after several destructions by fire that the present building was commenced, probably about the year 1240. The crypt and the whole of the choir belong to the latter part of the 13th century, the nave to the 14th, the tower and spire to the 15th. The central aisle never having been intended to be vaulted, the architect has been enabled to dispense with all pinnacles, flying buttresses, and such expedients, and thus to give the whole outline a degree of solidity and repose which is extremely beautiful, and accords perfectly with the simple lancet openings which prevail throughout.

The whole length of the building externally, exclusive of the western towers, one of which has recently been pulled down, is 300 feet, the breadth 73, and the area about 26,400 square feet, so that it is far from being a large building; but its situation is so good, and its design and proportion so appropriate and satisfactory throughout,that it is more imposing than many others of twice its dimensions. The spire, which is 219 feet in height from the floor of the church, is in perfect proportion to the rest of the building, both in dimensions and outline, and aids very much the general effect of the whole.

875. View in Crypt of Glasgow Cathedral.

The glory of this cathedral is its crypt, which is unrivalled in Britain, and indeed perhaps in Europe. Almost all the crypts now found in England were built during the Norman period, or very early in the pointed style. That at Glasgow, however, belongs to the perfected style of the 13th century, and as the ground falls rapidly towards the west, the architect was enabled to give it all the height required, and to light it with perfect ease. Here the crypt actually extends under and beyond the whole choir; but even with all its adjuncts, it did not equal in size the crypt of old St. Paul’s. There is a solidity, however, in the architecture of the crypt at Glasgow, a richness in its vaulting, and a variety of perspective in the spacing ofits pillars, which make it one of the most perfect pieces of architecture in these islands.

876. Crypt of Cathedral at Glasgow.

877. Clerestory Window, Glasgow Cathedral.

In the crypt and lower part of the church the windows are generally single or double lancet, united by an arch. In the clerestory they sometimes take the form of three lancets, united, as shown in Woodcut No.877, by an imperfect kind of tracery, more in accordance with the simplicity of the building than the more complex form prevalent in England at the same period. In the south transept, and some of the later additions, there is a tracery of considerable elaboration and beauty of design.

878. East End of Glasgow Cathedral.

879. East End, Elgin Cathedral.

Perhaps the most beautiful building in Scotland is, or was, the cathedral of Elgin. The province of Moray, in which it was situated, was so remote that it seems to have been comparatively undisturbed by the English wars, and the greater part of the building was erected during the Edwardian period, with all the beautiful details of that age.The seat of the see was removed from Spynie to Elgin in the year 1223, and the cathedral commenced contemporaneously with those of Amiens and Salisbury. All that now remains of this period is the fragment of the south transept (Woodcut No.880), where we see the round arch reappearing over the pointed, at a period when its use was entirely discontinued in the South. At the same time the details of thedoorway (Woodcut No.881) show that in other respects the style was at that period as far advanced as in England. The cathedral was burnt down in 1270, and again partially in 1390. The choir and other parts which still remain were built subsequently to the first conflagration and escaped the second. These parts appear at first sight to belong to the lancet style of the previous century, but used with the details and tracery of the Edwardian period, and with a degree of beauty hardly surpassed anywhere. As compared with English cathedrals, that at Elgin must be considered as a small church, being only 253 ft. in length internally, and 82 wide across the five aisles of the nave. It is very beautifully arranged, and on the whole is perhaps more elegant in plan than any of the Southern examples. As a mechanical design, its worst fault is that the piers supporting the central tower want strength and accentuation. As will be seen from the plan, an attempt was made to throw the weight of the tower on the transept walls, which are built solid for this purpose; but this was artistically a mistake, while mechanically it caused the destruction of the tower at the beginning of the last century. The choir (see Woodcut No.879) is terminated by what is virtually a great east window, but with piers between the compartments instead of mullions. As an architectural object this is a far more stable and appropriate design than a great mullioned window like that of York and others in England. But the latter must be judged of as frames for glass pictures, which Elgin is by no means so well suited to display. Its details, however, are exquisite, and the whole design very rich and beautiful.

880. South Transept, Elgin Cathedral.

881. Ornament of Doorway, Elgin Cathedral.

882. Plan of Elgin Cathedral. (From an Original Plan.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

The north and south aisles of the nave and the chapter-house were rebuilt after the last destruction, and belong to the 15th century. These parts, though very charming, display generally the faults of the Scotch Flamboyant style, and show a certain amount of heaviness and clumsiness mixed with the flowing and unconstructive lines of this class of tracery, which nothing could redeem but the grace and elegance with which the French always used it.

Next in beauty to Elgin Cathedral is the well-known abbey at Melrose. This, though founded contemporaneously with Jedburgh and Kelso, was entirely rebuilt during the Lancastrian period, and, owing to its situation near the border, shows much more affinity tothe English style than the building last described. The nave, as may be seen from the view of its aisle (Woodcut No.883), is of a bold, solid style of architecture, with a vault of considerable richness. The window of the south transept is the most elegant specimen of flowing tracery to be found in Scotland, and its great east window (Woodcut No.884), as before remarked, is almost the only example of the Perpendicular style in the North, and is equal to anything of the kind on this side of the Tweed.

883. Aisle in Melrose Abbey.

Few of the architectural antiquities of Scotland are so well known, or have been so much admired, as the chapel at Roslyn (Woodcut No.885), which William St. Clair caused to be erected in the year 1446.

For this purpose he did not employ his countrymen, but “brought artificers from other regions and forraigne kingdomes,”[118]and employed them to erect a building very unlike anything else to be found in Great Britain.

884. East Window, Melrose.

Our present knowledge of styles enables us to pronounce with little doubt that his architects came from the Spanish peninsula. In fact,there is no detail or ornament in the whole building which may not be traced back to Burgos or Belem; though there is a certain clumsiness both in the carving and construction that betrays the workmanship of persons not too familiar with the task that they were employed upon. The building, which perhaps exhibits the greatest affinity of detail to the Chapel is the church at Belem on the Tagus, opposite Lisbon (Woodcut No.969). Nothing, in fact, can well be more similar than the two are. That at Roslyn is the oldest, having been commenced in 1446. Belem, begun in 1498, was finished apparently in 1511, at which date the Scottish example hardly appears to have been complete. Roslyn Chapel is small, only 68 ft. by 35 ft. internally. The central aisle is but 15 ft. wide, and has the Southernpeculiarity of a tunnel-vault with only transverse ribs, such as is found at Fontifroide (Woodcut No.553), and in almost all the old churches of the South of France. The ornaments between these, which were painted in the earlier examples, are at Roslyn carved in relief. The vault, as in the South, is a true roof, the covering slabs being laid directly on the extrados or outside of it, without the intervention of any woodwork, a circumstance to which the chapel owes its preservation to the present day. Beyond the upper chapel is a sub-chapel (Woodcut No.886), displaying the same mode of vaulting in a simpler form, but equally foreign and unlike the usual form of vaults in Scotland.

885. Chapel at Roslyn.

886. Under Chapel, Roslyn.

887. Stone Roof of Bothwell Church. (From a Drawing by J. Honeyman, jun.)

Another very interesting chapel of the same class is that now used as the church at Bothwell, near Glasgow. Like Roslyn, it has the peculiarity unknown in England, though common in the South of France, of a tunnel-vault with a stone roof resting directly upon it. It is not large, measuring only 53 feet by 22, internally. The beauty of its details, however—late in the 14th century—and the simplicity of its outline, combined with the solidity of its stone roof, impart to the whole an air of grandeur far greater than its dimensions would justify. Had it been constructed with a timber roof, as usual in churches of its date, it would hardly be considered remarkable, but it is redeemed both internally and externally by its stone roof. As will be seen from Woodcut No.888, the arrangement of the stones forming the roof is very elegant, and gave rise to a form of battlement frequently found afterwards in Scotland, though generally used only as an ornament.[119]

888. Exterior of Roof of Bothwell Church.

889. Ornamental Arcade from Holyrood.

890. Ornamental Arcade from Holyrood.

The chapel attached to the palace at Holyrood is of a very different character from that at Roslyn; being infinitely more beautiful, though not nearly so curious. The building was originally founded by David I. in 1128, but what now remains belongs to the latter end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century, and has all the elegance of the Edwardian style joined to a massiveness which in England would indicate a far earlier period. Some of its details (as that shown, Woodcut No.889) are of a beautiful transitional character, though not so early as might be suspected; and others (such as Woodcut No.890) have the rich but foreign aspect that generally characterises the architecture of Scotland.

891. Interior of Porch, Dunfermline.

The nave of the cathedral of Aberdeen is still sufficiently entire to be used as a church, and with its twin western spires of bold castellated design is an impressive building; but it has a character of over-heaviness arising from the material used being granite, which did not admit of any of the lighter graces of Gothic art.

The cathedral of St. Andrew’s must at one time have been one ofthe most beautiful in Scotland, but fragments only of its east and west ends now remain. They suffice to show that it was of considerable dimensions, and inferior, perhaps, only to Elgin and Melrose in beauty of detail.

892. Window at Dunkeld (restored).

Besides these there are in Scotland many ruined monastic establishments, all evincing more or less beauty of design and detail. One of the most remarkable of these is Dunfermline, whose nave is of a bold, round-arched style, very like what Durham Cathedral would have been had it been intended (as this was) for a wooden roof. The other parts display that intermixture of styles so usual in monastic buildings; bold billeted arches, as in Woodcut No.891, being surmounted by vaults of a much later date. But Scotch vaulting was in general so massive and rich that it requires the eye of an archæologist to detect a difference that is never offensive to the true artist. Among the remaining specimens are Dunblane, Aberbrothock, Arbroath, and Dunkeld, a window of which (Woodcut No.892) is a fine specimen of the Scotch flamboyant, identical in design with one still existing in Linlithgow parish church, and very similar to many found elsewhere.The west doorway in the last named church is a pleasing specimen of the half Continental[120]manner in which that feature was usually treated in Scotland.

893. Doorway, Linlithgow.

It has already been hinted that the Scotch unwillingly abandoned the circular archway, especially as a decorative feature, and that they indeed retain it occasionally throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, though with the details of the period. The doorway illustrated in Woodcut No.894, from St. Giles’s, Edinburgh, is a fine specimen of this mode of treatment, and so is the next illustration, from Pluscardine Abbey. Similar doorways occur at Melrose and elsewhere. For canopies of tombs and suchlike purposes, the circular arch is almost as common as the pointed. Other examples are found at Iona, though there the buildings are nearly as exceptional and Continental in design as Roslyn itself—the circular pier-arch is used with themouldings of the 13th century, and the pointed arch is placed on a capital of intertwined dragons, more worthy of a Runic cross or tombstone than a Gothic edifice. The tower windows are filled with a quatrefoil tracery (Woodcut No.896), in a manner very unusual, and a mode of construction is adopted which does not perhaps exist anywhere else in Britain. The whole group, in fact, is as exceptional as its situation, and as remote from the usual modes of architecture on the mainland.

The early Scotch vaults, as already mentioned, were singularly bold and massive, and all their mouldings were characterised by strength and vigour, as shown in the examples taken from Glasgow and Dunfermline (Woodcuts Nos.876,891). At a later period, however, when the English were using perpendicular tracery, and when the invention of fan-vaulting was beginning to be introduced, the Scotch, with the flamboyant tracery of the French, adopted also their weak and unconstructive modes of vaulting. It is not uncommon to find as poor a vault as that of the lately destroyed Trinity College Church, Edinburgh (Woodcut No.897), erected contemporaneously with the elaborate vaulting of the royal chapels in England; and not only in this but in every other respect it is to the Continent, and not to their nearest neighbours, that we must at this late period look for analogies with the architecture of the Scotch.

894. Doorway, St. Giles’s, Edinburgh.

Scotland is, generally speaking, very deficient in objects of civil or domestic architecture belonging to the Middle Ages. Of her palaces, Holyrood was almost rebuilt in the reign of Charles I., and Edinburgh Castle entirely remodelled. Stirling still retains some fragments ofancient art, and Falkland seems on the verge of the Renaissance. Linlithgow perhaps alone remains in its original state, a fine specimen of a fortified palace, with bold flanking towers externally, and a noble courtyard in the centre.

895. Doorway, Pluscardine Abbey.

896. Window in Tower, Iona.

There are, besides these, numberless square towers and fortalices scattered over the country, which were the residences of the turbulent barons of Scotland during the Middle Ages; but none of these can properly be called objects of architecture.

897. Aisle in Trinity College Church, Edinburgh.

The baronial edifices of the succeeding age give the impression of belonging to an earlier style, which was retained in this wild country long after it had been laid aside elsewhere. They are as remarkable as any class of buildings erected after the Middle Ages, both for originality and picturesqueness. But they were, with scarcely an exception, built after the accession of Elizabeth to the throne of England, and all, when closely examined, display features belonging to the Renaissance style. Their description would therefore be more appropriate in a subsequent volume than in a chapter devoted to the Gothic architecture of Scotland.

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