STOBO CHURCH, Peeblesshire.
This church is situated in the valley of the Tweed, six and a half miles west from Peebles, and within one mile of Stobo Railway Station. It is
Fig. 287.—Stobo Church. Plan.
Fig. 288.—Stobo Church. View from South-East.
a Norman structure, to which some alterations and additions have been made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The building is still used as the parish church. The roof and interior fittings are modern, as are also the skews and gabled skew putts, of which latter there was no suggestion in the old work. But the most serious injury inflicted on the
Fig. 289.—Stobo Church. Norman Doorway.
structure was the entire destruction of the Norman chancel arch at the restoration of the building in 1868, “in order to insert a modern pointed one.”—(Transactions of the Aberdeen Ecclesiological Society, 1887, p. 6.)
The building ([Fig. 287]) consists of a nave about 40 feet long by 18 feet 7 inches wide, with a chancel about 24 feet 4 inches long by 16 feet wide, thus making the total interior length about 67 feet 4 inches. There is a tower at the west end, about 20 feet square over the walls, and 11 feet by 9 feet 6 inches inside. The tower has originally opened into the church with what appears to have been a round arch, which is now partly concealed by a gallery and other erections. This opening has been reduced in size, as shown on the plan, to a doorway about three feet wide. The doorway is pointed, and of old date.
As the whole building is harled or rough cast on the outside and plastered on the inside, it is impossible to say definitely whether the tower is Norman or later. The work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries consists of the south porch ([Fig. 288]), built up against the Norman doorway ([Fig. 289]), and a north aisle or chapel, which opened from the nave with a round arch, now built up. This chapel, which is ruined, was barrel vaulted. The windows in the south wall are also of this period. The mullions and tracery of those of the nave are modern, as is also a monument erected against the interior of the east wall, which may possibly conceal a Norman east window. The four-light window in the south wall of the chancel ([Fig. 290]), although of this late period, is quaint and pleasing, the small circle in the apex giving it quite a touch of originality.
Fig. 290.—Stobo Church. Window in South Wall of Chancel.
A round arched recess for a monument in the north side of the chancel also belongs to this period. It has contained a coat of arms, which is effaced.
The original windows in the north side of the chancel remain. The daylight is about 7 inches wide by about 2 feet high. There has been a Norman doorway in the north side of the nave. It has a plain arch, and was probably not unlike the doorway in the opposite wall, which is of very simple design, with octagonal shafts. The capitals are slightly mutilated.
The window to the west of the porch is modern, as are the doorway and stair in the tower. The latter is of wood, and leads to the gallery already referred to. There does not appear to have been a stone stair in the tower. The belfry is late, as is the present tower roof. It is impossible to say how the tower was originally finished.
The walls being lined with wood on the inside, the usual fittings are concealed, the only feature visible being the locker, shown on Plan, near the east end. It is widely splayed in the ingoing, and is not Norman. The south chancel door is probably of the period of the adjoining windows.
Stobo Church, like most of the churches of Peeblesshire, “belonged to the diocese of Glasgow at the epoch of Earl David’s Inquisitio in 1116, and both the church and manor were confirmed to that see, by several bulls of successive Popes, in the twelfth century.” In Bagimont’s Roll (1275) it is mentioned as the “Rectoria de Stobo” and the “Vicaria de Stobo.”[179] It was the church of a Plebania,[180] having subordinate churches or chaplainries within its territory, over which its priest, who was styled dean, exercised a certain authority. There were four subordinate parishes—viz., Broughton, Dowie, Drummelzier, and Tweedsmuir. In 1116 the rectory of Stobo was converted into the valuable prebend of Tweeddale in Glasgow Cathedral.