DALMENY CHURCH, Linlithgowshire.
This edifice is the completest of our Norman parish churches, consisting ([Fig. 251]) of a chancel with eastern apse and a nave or main building, separated from the chancel by an elaborate chancel arch. As usual in parish churches of this period, there are no aisles. Although the above divisions are complete, the church has not entirely escaped alterations and additions. On the north side projecting wings have been added, which contain a gallery and a north porch, and staircase leading to the gallery. The south front and east end are, however, almost untouched, and show the work of the twelfth century, uninjured save by natural decay.
The church stands beside the quiet and pleasant rural village of Dalmeny, about one mile inland from South Queensferry, and about eight miles west from Edinburgh. Little is known of its history. A charter is signed by Robert Avenel, “parson of Dumanie,” about 1166-82, and in the thirteenth century, during the reign of William or Alexander II., the church was granted to the monks of Jedworth. It is believed to have been dedicated to St. Adamnan,[170] and the fact of the neighbouring church of Cramond being dedicated to St. Columba tends to confirm this belief, as it has been pointed out by Dr. Skene that these two saints’ names are generally found together in the dedication of churches.
The edifice consists of a nave 42 feet long by 18 feet wide, with a projection in the south wall, which contains the doorway. It has three small windows in the south wall. In the interior of the south wall there is a recess, now linteled over, which may have contained a monument.
Fig. 251.—Dalmeny Church. Plan.
From the rough nature of the masonry at the west end of the nave, a tower would appear to have been intended to be built there. Part of the commencement of its side walls exists, and into these the two buttresses shown on Plan have been toothed or joined at a later period.
The nave ([Fig. 252]) opens to the chancel with a splendid chancel arch, having three orders decorated with elaborate chevron ornaments, enclosed with a hood moulding carved with an enrichment somewhat resembling the dog-tooth ([Fig. 253]). The soffit of the arch contains a similar faceted enrichment. The arch is carried on three attached shafts on each side, built in ashlar, and provided with subdivided cushion caps and plain bases.
Fig. 253.
The chancel ([Fig. 254]) is 16 feet long by 15 feet wide, and is vaulted with bold diagonal groin-ribs, enriched with chevron ornaments and springing from grotesque corbels ([Fig. 255]). It has one small window on the south side, with plain splay in the ingoing and plain sconsions and arch.
The apse is semi-circular, and is entered from the chancel by an
Fig. 252.—Dalmeny Church. Nave, looking East.
enriched arch (see [Fig. 254.]). The arch has two orders carved with chevron ornaments and a hood mould with faceted enrichment. The shafts and caps are similar to those of the chancel arch. The apse is vaulted like a single square bay, with boldly moulded groin-ribs springing from large corbels carved with grotesque heads ([Figs. 256] and [257]). The wall is of
Fig. 254.—Dalmeny Church. View of Apse from Chancel.
plain ashlar, and the apse is lighted by three plain window openings ([Fig. 258]), the central one of which has been enlarged.
The exterior of the church ([Fig. 259]) is built with the usual cubic ashlar of the period. All the windows in the building ([Fig. 260]) have a single pair of shafts with cushion or carved caps, and an arch, of one order, carved with chevron ornament, and a hood mould enriched with faceted patterns. The choir and apse have a boldly projected cornice supported on corbels carved with grotesque heads. The choir has the side walls carried up in the form of a parapet above the cornice, having evidently been raised at some period to the same height externally as the nave. A string course runs round the building immediately below the windows, of which it forms the sills. It is enriched with a carved floral pattern.
The doorway ([Fig. 261]) is placed in a projecting part of the south wall, and is surmounted by an arcade of interlacing arches, with corbel course above, carved with grotesque heads.
The doorway has two nook shafts on each side, the outer one round
Fig. 255.—Dalmeny Church. Corbels.
and the inner one octagonal. These are detached and in single stones. They carry enriched caps, three of them having foliage and volutes imitated from the Roman, and one with traces of an animal. A string course, enriched with scrolls, forms an abacus above the caps, and from the abacus spring the arch mouldings in two orders, with carved hood mould beyond.
The inner order of arches contains thirteen voussoirs, each of which is sculptured with a figure. These figures ([Fig. 262]) are very similar to those often found on the ancient sculptured monuments of Scotland, and have also considerable analogy with the figures carved on the Norman churches of England and on the Continent, thus indicating (as pointed out in the Introduction) the connection between the former and the latter. Commencing at the right-hand voussoir of the inner order, we have (No. 1) a clear representation of the Agnus Dei, bearing the cross in sign of victory; No. 2 seems to represent a serpent, possibly with a human head; No. 3 represents a winged quadruped with a bird’s head; No. 4, a lion (a favourite emblem both in Norman work and Scottish monuments); Nos. 5 and 6 are too much decayed to be intelligible; No. 7 seems
Fig. 256.—Dalmeny Church. View from the Apse, looking West.
to be a hare running and an animal with scrolled tail at rest; No. 8, a winged bird and serpent; No. 9, a winged dragon with tail passing into a divided scroll, part of which it is biting with its bill; No. 10, a winged griffin; No. 11, a bird with a fish’s tail pecking at a serpent; No. 12, two
Fig. 257.—Dalmeny Church.
seated human figures clasping hands; No. 13, a nondescript bird and serpent.
Fig. 258.—Window in Apse.
The outer order of the arch contains eight projecting heads of grotesque form, but some of them much decayed. Alternating with these heads are voussoirs carved with figures somewhat similar to those of the inner order. These, so far as can be made out, are—No. 1, a man with a pair of horses; No. 2, a lion, perhaps crowned; No. 3 seems to represent a number of darts radiating from a centre; No. 4, a centaur or Sagittarius shooting an arrow at an undefined object; No. 5, two seated
Fig. 259.—Dalmeny Church. From South-East.
figures, one holding a spear or pastoral staff. At each side of the arch, and resting on the string course, are two detached figures, which recall the figures similarly placed at Whithorn Priory. That on the right represents a man holding a spear, that on the left, although apparently a human figure, is too far gone to be clearly made out.
This doorway is particularly interesting from being, as we believe, the only example in Scotland of similar well-preserved sculptures upon a church. In England, as pointed out by Mr. Romilly Allen, sculpture
Fig. 260.—Dalmeny Church. Window in Nave and Choir.
of this description is common on Norman structures after 1135, especially on doorways and fonts. It is difficult to form an idea of the meaning of many of these sculptured figures, occurring, as they do, in the strangest juxtaposition. On this point Mr. Romilly Allen observes[171] that “one of the most remarkable features in Norman sculpture is the way in which the Agnus Dei is associated with what appears to us to be the most incongruous surroundings, such as animals, serpents, and a bird at Parwich in Derbyshire; animals and a figure holding a pastoral staff at Hagnaston in Derbyshire; a tree with birds and Sagittarius and Leo at Stoke Subhampton in Somersetshire, &c.” Such descriptions would well apply
Fig. 261.—Dalmeny Church. Doorway.
to the doorway of Dalmeny Church, where we have associated with the Agnus Dei, Leo, Sagittarius, serpents, birds, dragons, and human figures, one, perhaps, bearing a pastoral staff.
Numerous similar figures may be also seen on the sculptured monuments
Fig. 262.—Dalmeny Church. Figures on Inner and Outer Orders of Doorway Arch.
of Scotland, and thus a connection is observed between these remarkable erections and the sculpture of Norman buildings, which brings the earlier monuments into close connection with the later, and provides them a place in the general history of art in the country. Sculptures of a similar description have, at one time, existed at Dunfermline and Jedburgh, but they are now too far wasted away to be intelligible.