ST. OLA, Kirkwall.
This church stands in Bridge Street Lane, and is now a carpenter’s shop and warehouse, the property of Mrs. John Reid. It formerly was enclosed in “a close” or court, and was once converted into a “poorhouse,” from which the close was called “Poorhouse Close.” It has been so much mutilated in its several conversions that little can be stated of its original style and arrangement.
It stands about west by south and east by north. It consists of one parallelogram, 35 feet by 18 feet inside. ([Fig. 78.]) The south side
Fig. 78.—St. Ola, Kirkwall. Plan.
abuts on the lane, and a house is attached to the west end, from which house into the chapel a modern doorway has been cut.
Fig. 79.—St. Ola, Kirkwall. Details.
The south wall is 2 feet 11 inches thick, the west 3 feet 6 inches.
The original entrance is on the south, 17 feet from the exterior west angle. ([Fig. 79.]) It is 3 feet 5 inches wide, with a semicircular head and continuous mouldings of a hollow, ornamented with four-leaved flowers and a filleted roll, like many of the mouldings in the cathedral, except as to the flowers. When the street was paved about thirty years ago the ground was raised, the jambs were covered up 9 inches, two stones were inserted just below the impost and the arch raised. What the height of the side walls was is not now evident. They are now about 20 feet above the original floor at the entrance. Probably the ridge was about 24 feet high.
The east end has no trace of an original window, but a modern one has been inserted. In the south wall near the east angle is a modern window, but probably in the place of an original one. The other original windows cannot be traced. Probably there was a step at 10 feet or 11 feet from the east end, and perhaps a screen. A few feet east of the entrance inside was a stoup or piscina (see [Fig. 79.]). In the north wall near the east angle remains an ambry (see [Fig. 79.]) 1 foot 4¾ inches wide, 2 feet 1 inch high, and 1 foot 3½ inches recessed. The head is an ogee arch under a hood moulding, and it is flanked by buttresses with finials. The bottom of this ambry is 5 feet 1 inch above what appears to have been the original level of the floor. The moulding of this resembles that of the entrance, except in having no flowers.
In the east wall near the south angle is a smaller ambry, also ogee headed and less ornate, the bottom of which is 2 feet 6 inches above the floor. The use of the ogee is very rare in Scotland. The only curves of that kind in St. Magnus are in fragments of Bishop Tulloch’s tomb.
South of the chapel in what is now the lane were found, in forming the lane, gravestones and human bones. Close by the chapel was lying, in 1855, a stone, having on it, sculptured in relief, apparently a shield, under a mitre, but too much defaced to be recognised, and below the shield, “Robertvs ...,” and a date or letters illegible. Bishop Robert Reid held the see from 1540 to the Reformation; and as the mouldings (especially the four-leaved flower and the ogee arch) point to the fifteenth century, perhaps the chapel may be a late example of the style, and be assigned to him. His coat of arms is a stag’s head cabossed.
The parish in which the town of Kirkwall is situated is that of St. Ola, and it is certain that in this part of the town was the parish church, dedicated to the great warrior saint of Norway—St. Olaf.
The fact of burials having been made close to this building makes it probable that this was the parish church; not a chapel of ease or of private endowment. Of course, this building was not the first parish church, though it may have occupied the site of the first, and probably did so.
It was probably after the constitution of Kirkwall as a royal burgh, about 1470, that the cathedral became practically the parish church, and St. Ola became merged in Kirkwall. The name Kirkwall (Church-bay), being wholly Norse, is some evidence that the name was caused by a Norse, not a Culdee, church. The situation could hardly fail to induce settlement of the Norsemen there. In the name Egilsey we have inference of a different origin, as will be hereafter mentioned. But supposing that the conjecture as to the name of Kirkwall is correct, it does not prove that there was not a Culdee church there.[124] Planned 1855.
Note by Geo. Petrie, Kirkwall, Corr. Mem. Soc. Antiq. Scot.
According to Jo. Ben, whose description of Orkney is dated in 1529, St. Ola’s Church was reduced to ashes by the English, probably during one of their many raids on the islands about that time. One of the raids was on 13th August 1502. As apparently corroborative of Sir Henry Dryden’s conjecture, that St. Ola’s Church was the parish church before the cathedral was so styled, an old charter in my possession proves that not only was the church known as St. Ola’s Kirk, but it had “St. Olaf’s Kirkyard,” “St. Olaf’s Burn,” and “St. Olaf’s Brig” in its vicinity. I think the fair inference from this is, that a church built here during the early part of the Norsemen’s possession of the islands was dedicated with its “kirkyard” to St. Olaf. The name soon extended to the neighbouring small stream or burn, and the “brig” by which it was crossed; and in the course of time embraced a considerable portion of the surrounding country. It is very probable that St. Ola’s Kirk occupied the same site on which stood the older building, from which the town was named by the Norsemen Kirkevaag (Kirk-bay), which was anciently pronounced “Kirkwaw,” and appears in that form in some old documents in my possession.
The fact that St. Ola’s Church had been destroyed in the beginning of the sixteenth century renders it almost certain that Sir Henry Dryden must be correct in attributing the erection of the church, of which there are considerable remains, to Bishop Robert Reid, as the style of architecture, as shown by Sir Henry, is in keeping with the period to which he supposes the building to belong.
The charter I have referred to is dated at “Kirkwall in Orknay ye last of July” 1580, and granted by “John Tailyor and Henrie Tailyor brether germane, and airis to our umqle fayir (father) Andro Tailyor, to our weil-be-louit friend Magnus Paplay” of “All and Haill ane hall, ane seller, ane chalm. yr.aboue wyt. yaird and pt.nents yr.to p.tene.g quhatsomeuir lyand adjacent to Sanct Olaiffis brig, Kirk and Kirkyaird of the samy. having on the Est pt. y.roff the housses p.tene.g to Symound Beatoun; on the West pt. Sanct Olaiffis Kirk and yaird of the samy.; on the South pt. the housses p.tene.g to Johnne Vysshart and Sant Olaffis burne yr. betuixt and to ye North pt. Sanct Katereins quoyis.”
THE FOLLOWING CHURCHES ARE OF THE TYPE CONTAINING CHANCEL AND NAVE.
CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF WYRE.
This stands on a flat piece of ground about the middle of the island, in a walled burial-ground, still used. The chapel has no roof, and is much filled up with rubbish. Large parts of the south wall have tumbled, as well as smaller portions of other walls. ([Fig. 80.])
It is built of grey whinstone, without any freestone dressings. The stones average about 1 foot 6 inches long by about 5 inches thick. It
Fig. 80.—Church, Wyre, Orkney. From South-West.
consists of chancel and nave, with a door at west end—all built at the same time. ([Fig. 81.]) The extreme exterior length is 35 feet 10 inches, and width 18 feet 4 inches. It stands west by south and east by north. The nave is 19 feet 2 inches by 12 feet 10 inches inside.
The west entrance is 2 feet 6 inches wide at bottom, with semicircular head, the feet of which are set back at the impost 2½ inches on each side. ([Fig. 82.]) This mode of putting the arch on was probably done to give a support to the centre on which the arch was built. The jambs are parallel, 3 feet 2 inches thick, and have no rebate for a door, nor any traces of there having been one.[125] There is no cap. The impost is 4 feet 11 inches above original stone sill. The whole interior is from 1 foot 6 inches to 2 feet deep in rubbish.
The west wall is 3 feet 2 inches thick, the north and south about 3 feet.
There are no windows on the north or west of the nave. There are two on the south side, but only one of these appears original. This has a
Fig. 81.—Church, Wyre, Orkney. Plan and North and South Elevations.
clear opening of 1 foot 10 inches by 8 inches, with a flat head. The jambs splay inward to 2 feet 3 inches in width. The outer edges are broken, so that it is uncertain whether it had an external chamfer.
The upper part of the side walls is in many places destroyed, but as far as can be now ascertained, the top of the nave walls was 11 feet 5 inches above the sill of west door. The chancel walls were only 4 or 5 inches lower.
The upper part of all the gables is gone.
The chancel arch is exactly like the west entrance in every way. The jambs are 3 feet thick. A springer of the gable-coping remains at the north-east angle, 1 foot wide, 7 or 8 inches thick, and of 1 foot projection. In 1852 the springer at the south-west angle was existing. The chancel is 7 feet 10 inches by 7 feet 2 inches inside.
There is one window on the south which appears to have been round headed, and 2 feet 7 inches by 11 inches. The jambs splay inward to
Fig. 82.—Church, Wyre, Orkney. Sections and East and West Elevations.
2 feet 11 inches in width. The outer edges are broken, but there seems to have been an external splay. There is no ambry, and no trace of altar or altar place.
The springers of the gable-coping remain at the south-east and north-east angles. These are 1 foot wide and about 8 inches thick, and project 1 foot.
The roofs of nave and chancel were either of tie-beam construction or of rafters coupled half-way up, and covered with stone slates.
My conjectural restoration makes the ridge of the nave roof 19 feet above the sill of the west entrance. This chapel closely resembles in size and form the chapel at Lybster, in Caithness, described farther on in this work (p. 162). Probably Wyre Chapel is of the twelfth or thirteenth century, but the characteristics are not decisive enough to approximate more closely to its date. It is called “Cubberow” Chapel, from its vicinity to Cubberow Castle.
The exterior length of the nave is equal to the diagonal of the square of its exterior width. The chancel is nearly square.