As will be seen from the Plan ([Fig. 350]), the central part consists of four rounded shafts, having a boldly pronounced base moulding. The basin is in the form of a Norman cushion capital, with four rounds on each face, the abacus having a splayed projection of about a quarter of an inch. The font has evidently been meant to be placed against a wall, as all its parts—base, shaft, and capital—abut against a square haffit perfectly plain on the back, to admit of its standing in such a position. The ends of this haffit are very much broken.
The dimensions of the font are—base, 7 inches high; shaft, 17 inches; capital, 11 inches; total height, 2 feet 11 inches. Width across shafts, 13¼ inches; capital, 16¾ inches across front, and from back to front,
Fig. 349.—Herdmanston Font.
including haffit, 17¼ inches. The basin, which is rounded (see Plan), is 11¾ inches wide by 5 inches in depth. It is flat in the bottom and has no perforation.
In the thirteenth century, John de Saint Clair erected a chapel at Herdmanston by leave of the Canons of Dryburgh, to whom he granted two acres of land, with a condition that his chapel should not injure the mother church of Salton, which belonged, in the time of David I., to Dryburgh Abbey.[189]
The vault at Herdmanston stands east and west. It is about 31 feet 10 inches long by 14 feet wide, and has a small west window, with a sconsion arch on the inside, and a smaller window in the south wall. The structure, which is barrel vaulted, is of considerable age, but it is not the chapel erected in the thirteenth century; and as the font is a work of
