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.
DUDDINGSTON CHURCH, Mid-Lothian.
This ancient Norman edifice has formed the place of worship for the locality since the twelfth century, and is still used as the parish church. It is picturesquely situated on the north side of Duddingston Loch,
Fig. 291.—Duddingston Church. Plan.
immediately under the south side of Arthur’s Seat, and within a mile of Edinburgh.