Fig. 717.—St. Mary’s Chapel. Plan.
This chapel, standing in the centre of its churchyard, is situated at the east end of the lonely loch of Strathbeg, not far from Rattray Head, a place well known and feared by sailors. It measures internally 45 feet from east to west by 18 feet 9 inches from north to south ([Fig. 717]). The gables are nearly entire, with considerable portions of the side walls. Almost all the stone dressings within reach have, as usual, been torn out for common purposes, so that the building is in a tottering condition, and is greatly robbed of its interest; but enough remains to show that it is a genuine church of the thirteenth century. It is built of rough angular stones, with red freestone dressings. In the east wall ([Fig. 718]) there are three round-arched and widely splayed windows, the centre one being the highest and widest, viz., 2 feet wide and, according to the new statistical account (which appears to be reliable), 11 feet high, and the other two are each 7 feet high. The gable itself is said to be 32 feet high in its present condition. There appear to have been north and south doors near the west end, and no other openings in the side walls. In the west gable there is a window 8 or 10 feet above the ground, and from 3 to 4 feet wide. The church has thus been entirely lighted from the east and west ends. It is needless to say that there are no remains of any of the usual internal features, the polished stones of such having been carried off, forming too strong a temptation to be resisted.
Fig. 718.—St. Mary’s Chapel. View from South-West.
The earliest notice of this chapel is between the years 1214 and 1233, when William Cumyn, Earl of Buchan, gives certain lands for the yearly payment of two stones of wax, afterwards given by the Earl “in free alms for ever to the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the town of Rettre in Buchan.”[109] Again, in 1451, the chamberlain of the crown lands in Buchan makes a deduction of six shillings, “paid to the Chaplin of Rattre.” And in 1460 King James III. confirms a charter for a yearly payment of five pounds and the third part of a stone of wax to the chapel of the “Beate Marie Virginis de Ratreff.”[110]
ST. MAGRIDIN’S CHURCH, Abdie, Fifeshire.
The parish of Abdie is situated in the north of Fife, about two miles south from Newburgh. It was originally called the parish of Lindores, but that name was appropriated by the abbey, which was also founded in the same parish. The loch of Lindores, on the south bank of which the ruins of the church of Abdie stand, still retains the ancient name. The church was of much earlier date than the abbey, and Mr. Laing[111] states that there can be little doubt that the church of Lindores (now Abdie) was of Culdee origin, and was one of the earliest religious settlements in the country. The name Lindores signifies the “church by the water,” a peculiarly appropriate designation in this instance. “In a writing of the thirteenth century on a fly-leaf of a volume preserved in the Imperial Library, Paris, it is recorded that the consecration of ‘Ebedyn’ church by David de Bernhame, Bishop of St. Andrews, took place on the 5th day of September A.D. 1242, a date which corresponds with the style of its architecture.”[112]