Fig. 689.—The Abbey of Deer. Plan.
The conventual buildings lay on the south side of the church, and are built on ground sloping southwards towards the Ugie, so that a basement story was required. The interior of the whole range of buildings is so overgrown with vegetation and filled with debris that it is with the utmost difficulty one can make his way through the ruins, and thus an accurate examination of the place is hardly possible.
The cloister was about 70 feet from north to south by about 90 feet from east to west. On the south side there is a range of buildings about 125 feet long by 31 feet wide, divided into four apartments, forming the basement story, over which the refectory was probably built. To the east of this, lying north and south, is the fratry, measuring 35 feet in length by about 19 feet in width inside. Projecting southwards beyond the fratry by its full width a long range of buildings extends 80 feet eastwards, and measures about 21 feet in width over the walls. At the west end of this range there is an apartment about 20 feet from east to west by about 16 feet wide, which may probably have been the kitchen. In the north wall of this apartment there is a flue about 10 inches square. The room enters from a passage adjoining on the east side. There appears to have been a stair in this passage leading down to the lower buildings, and probably up to the dormitory, but the block of ruins at this part is so great as to render further observation impossible. Of the buildings which occupied the east side of the cloister all traces have now disappeared.
| Fig. 690.—The Abbey of Deer. Doorway in Passage. | Fig. 691.—The Abbey of Deer. Arches in the Ruins. |
It is highly probable that the church was completed before the monks erected any permanent dwelling for themselves, and this may partly account for the resignation of the tenth abbot, Dene Adam of Smalham, a monk of Melrose, who demitted office in 1267, “choosing rather to live in the sweet converse of his brethren of Melrose, than to Govern an unworthy flock, under the lowly roofs of Deir.”[105]
All the conventual buildings now existing are of a date subsequent to the founding of the abbey, but under the circumstances already narrated, and from the absence of mouldings, it is somewhat difficult to fix their period. The openings are all round arched and simply splayed. The doorway into the passage adjoining the kitchen has a carved keystone ([Fig. 690]), a rather unusual feature in Gothic work. The carving, which is cut in granite, is decidedly Gothic in feeling, although in all probability late. There exists a view of the abbey as it existed in 1770.[106] The view appears to have been taken from the south, although it is rather difficult to fix the point of view; but, assuming that it is from the south, it shows the north wall of the building just described as in a much better state of preservation than it is now, and the south wall as rather more ruinous. We understand that the north wall was repaired sometime in this century. Judging from the view and from the remains, the south elevation seems to have been finished with a series of gables, having round-arched and splayed windows. Only a few fragments of the church remain, and there can be no doubt as to their period. They are genuine relics of the original church founded in the thirteenth century. The principal fragment consists of two cusped arches ([Fig. 691]), probably forming the top of a sedilia. They measure in width 1 foot 10½ inches each by 2 feet 3½ inches high inside, and are recessed about 12 inches.