CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF ENHALLOW.
This church, till lately, was unknown for many years, having been converted long ago into a cottage. On the small island Enhallow (the Holy Island), on the south-west slope of it, and about 200 yards from the shore, is a cluster of four cottages, in which four families lived. In 18—fever broke out among them, and the owner, Mr. Balfour, took the whole
Fig. 83.—Church, Enhallow, Orkney. Plan.
off the island, and pulled the roofs off the cottages. In this clearance the church was discovered. Having been altered and added to in its church time, and having since been altered and added to in its domestic time, its history is very puzzling.
It is of grey whinstones, mostly from 1 foot to 2 feet long (average 1 foot 6 inches), and 6 inches to 2 inches thick. The exterior length is 52 feet 8 inches, and the extreme width 23 feet 4 inches. It stands nearly exactly east and west. ([Fig. 83.]) The nave is 20 feet 7 inches by 12 feet inside. On the west of this, and entered through a round-headed arch, 4 feet 3 inches wide, with parallel jambs 2 feet 8 inches thick, is a building 7 feet 9 inches and 7 feet 5 inches inside, with walls 2 feet 7 inches thick, without any doorway to the outside, and with only one small square window to the south, perhaps not original. It is in the position of a tower, but it is not likely that a tower of that size would have been added to so small a church, and the walls are too thin. The size and character of the arch into it ([Fig. 84]) are against the notion that it was a
Fig. 84.—Church, Enhallow, Orkney. Sections and East Elevation.
priest’s room, supposing the room to be cotemporary with the arch. So little remains of the side walls that with regard to the windows and roof and height we are left to conjecture. There is no appearance of its having been higher than the nave. It most resembles a chancel on the west, and there is in Uyea, Shetland, a chapel with an adjunct, apparently original, in that position. If we may suppose that the west arch was the original entrance to the church, and that the south doorway was of later date, then this building may have been a sacristy, cotemporary with the south doorway. The floor of the late cottage was about 1 foot 3 inches above what appears to have been the floor of the west arch, which is 5 feet 5 inches below the top of cap. The north wall is 2 feet 10 inches thick, and the south wall 2 feet 6 inches. They are about 10 feet 6 inches or 11 feet above the supposed sill of the west arch.
The south doorway is of ecclesiastical date, even if the jambs are not original. The north doorway is perhaps domestic, though resembling that on south. They have the usual rebate and wooden frames fixed in them, and have lately been the doors of the cottage.
The heads are square. ([Fig. 85.]) Probably at the beginning of the domestic period the south one was altered in some degree, and the north one made or altered. If the building at the west end was the original chancel, these entrances are not cotemporary with that, being in wrong position for that arrangement.
Fig. 85.—Church, Enhallow, Orkney. North and South Elevations.
It is not certain whether the present chancel on the east is cotemporary with the nave, or whether there was an earlier one or none; but the present chancel arch is clearly an addition of a much later date than the nave. (See [Fig. 84.]) It is 4 feet 1 inch wide, pointed, has red freestone caps chamfered, and the mark of insertion is clear on the north side of it. It will be seen that the nave is 11 feet 3 inches wide at west end, and 12 feet at east, and in the south-east corner there is a slight projection and roughness. This may be the junction of a former south wall of the nave which got out of repair, or it may be the junction of the jamb of the chancel arch. When the chapel came to be used for a cottage it was divided into two stories. ([Fig. 86.])
On the north ([Fig. 87]) is one window, square headed, 2 feet by 1 foot 2 inches clear, with splayed jambs, but without freestone dressings or external chamfer, and in north-east corner is an ambry 3 feet 9 inches by 3 feet 9 inches, and 1 foot 6 inches recess. The bottom is 3 feet 6 inches above the original floor. The position is peculiar.
Fig. 86.—Church, Enhallow, Orkney. Sections.
Fig. 87.—Church, Enhallow, Orkney. Sections.
On the south is a window like that on the north, and three small ambries, perhaps one or all domestic.
The windows and doors on the north side of the nave and chancel are higher than on south side, owing to the slope of the ground.
The chancel is 12 feet 8 inches by 8 feet 9 inches inside, set out symmetrically with the nave. (See [Fig. 83.]) When it was made domestic a doorway was cut in the north wall. For some reason the upper part of the south wall was pulled down, and a casing put outside the lower part. A fireplace and chimney were made in the east wall, and a new face put outside the whole east end, including the added piece on the south, for no break or juncture is visible outside the east end. On the north is one window 2 feet by 1 foot clear, with splayed jambs, but no freestone dressings, and no external chamfer.[126] To the east of it is a small ambry. The window and ambry on the north are on a higher level than on the south.
When the casing was added on the south, the window was shifted out, or a lintel put in the added piece. Red freestone quoins and two sills (or possibly one, a square head) are lying near, and the jambs of the south window are much broken. Probably this sill, jamb stones, and head formed the south window, and are cotemporary with the chancel arch, having, perhaps, supplanted a window like that on the north.
Outside the south door of nave is a square addition, measuring 8 feet 1 inch by 7 feet 7 inches inside, now only 6 feet high, containing a radiating stair of five freestone steps. (See [Fig. 83.]) The west wall of it is 3 feet, and the south and east 2 feet 3 inches. There is no evidence of what this was, or led to, but the building certainly is ecclesiastical by the character of the work. The entrance to it from outside is on the east. Perhaps the stair led to a priest’s room or parvise over the porch, which, however, must have been very small; or it led to a bell turret. There are several jamb stones of red freestone belonging to a doorway lying about, and one (apparently in its proper position) is in the jamb of the outer entrance of this porch. ([Fig. 88.]) This makes it probable that this building is cotemporary with chancel arch. The red freestone window jambs, above mentioned, may have come out of this porch. Whatever the upper part of this porch was, the roof must have been higher than the eaves of the nave.
Plaster, apparently ancient, remains on the south wall of chancel lower part—on jambs of north window of chancel on east side of the chancel arch in the ambry on north side of the nave.
The roof was either of tie-beam arrangement, or of rafters coupled half-way up and covered with stone slates, or “divots.” The ridge of the nave roof was about 18 feet above sill of west arch.
The general history may be thus conjectured. In the eleventh or twelfth century a chapel was built of nave and chancel at the east end of the nave, and an entrance in the west end of the nave. In the fourteenth
Fig. 88.—Church, Enhallow, Orkney. Details.
century a new chancel arch was inserted, north and south doorways made, sacristy built at the west end, and a porch and parvise made outside the south doorway. After it became domestic the changes before described were made in the chancel. At a later date other additions were made. ([Fig. 89.])
If we suppose that the west building is the original chancel, the original entrance was in the place now occupied by the chancel arch.
Fig. 89.—Enhallow. View.
The proportion of the inside of the nave is that of the “vesica piscis”—the width to the length as the base of an equilateral triangle to the length of two such triangles on opposite sides of that base, and the internal length of the chancel is equal to the diagonal of the square of the internal width.
Barry mentions a tradition that neither rats, mice, nor cats will live on the island, which tradition agrees with the name of the island.