Fig. 360.—Dundrennan Abbey. Ornaments over Windows of Chapter House.
statue of Alan, Lord of Galloway, who was interred in the abbey in 1234. There seems also to have been a fine monument in the choir, and numerous portions of cusped and carved work are to be seen piled up in the nave, which may be fragments of this or some other ruined structure of the same nature.
The cloister garth is on the south side of the nave, and measures about 105 feet by 102 feet. The walls surrounding the cloisters are for the most part old. In the north-east angle is the ancient doorway to the nave, and in the north-west angle a more modern doorway. On the east
Fig. 361.—Dundrennan Abbey. Interior of West Wall of Chapter House.
side, adjoining the south transept, is the slype from which a wide door (doubtless modernised) leads into the transept. To the south of the slype stood the chapter house, which must have been a very beautiful building, measuring 51 feet from east to west by 34 feet from north to south internally. From some fragments of shafts which remain, and from the responds against the west wall, it appears to have been vaulted in three spans from north to south, with four bays from east to west, but the vaults have now entirely disappeared. The front wall next the cloisters, however, fortunately survives ([Fig. 358]).
It is a splendid specimen of first pointed architecture ([Fig. 359]). In the centre is the doorway, and on each side a window, divided into two openings by a central shaft. The doorway and windows were, as usual, designed to remain open, so that the brethren in the cloisters might hear all that passed in the chapter house.
The features are all beautifully designed, and the details are of the purest and most elegant forms (see [Fig. 358.]), the whole being enriched with finely carved dog-tooth and other ornaments.