Fig. 362.—Dundrennan Abbey. Caps in Cloisters.
In the arch mouldings a very profuse employment of the fillet is noticeable. The panels in the tympanum over the double arch of the windows, both in the exterior and interior, are filled in with plain, but finely designed, geometric figures ([Fig. 360]), and the simple bold cusps of the doorway have been carved with foliaceous scroll work, now almost obliterated by decay.
Internally the design of this front wall ([Fig. 361]) corresponds almost exactly with that of the outside, but is, perhaps, even more effective from containing the vaulting shafts and the springing of the broken groins.
The west wall of the chapter house is altogether a very exquisite piece of pointed work, and was probably executed just before the disturbances of the end of the thirteenth century, which interrupted, and for a time stopped, all architecture in Scotland. The style is clearly later than the early pointed work of the transept, the round abaci and the filleted mouldings contrasting with the square abaci and the pointed or round mouldings of the transept.
On the west side of the cloisters is a row of ruinous cellars, still partly vaulted, but not very accessible. On the south side are the door to what may have been a large chamber, probably the refectory, and some remains of domestic buildings. (See [Fig. 361.])
The north and east walls of the cloister still retain the remains of some sharply cut caps, of what has been an arcade, with arches about 3 feet 6 inches apart. The designs have evidently been very varied and full of spirit ([Fig. 362]), but it is scarcely possible to find one sufficiently well preserved to enable a complete sketch to be made.
The monuments of this abbey are not numerous, but they are interesting. In the recess of the north side doorway of the west end (now built up) is a large figure of an abbot, with his crozier, standing on the prostrate body of a man. This is known as the Abbot’s Stone. Another monument is called the Cellarer’s Stone, and shows a figure standing on serpents. It is dated 1480. There is also a monument containing a female figure, with an inscription partly defaced, but bearing the date of 1440. A plain monument to Frater Blackmore is probably of the fourteenth century.