Arch Mouldings.
Fig. 451.—St. Andrews Cathedral. North-East Angle of Cloister.
The usual east and west doorways open from the nave into the cloisters, the eastern one ([Fig. 451]) being of good transition design. Like all the openings on the ground level on the cloister side, it was, till recently, backed up with brick, so as to form a good wall for fruit trees; but this part of the building has now been opened up under the instructions of the Marquis of Bute.
A holy water stoup, in the angle of the transept, adjoins the eastern door to the cloister, and the corbels which supported the projecting upper part of the transept wall, and also carried the wall plate of the cloister roof, are likewise disclosed. A similar stoup exists in the corresponding position adjoining the cloister door at Melrose. Another doorway in the south wall, outside the west end, led to the conventual buildings. A doorway in the south transept aisle (see Plan) led to the south.
The chapter house was a room about 26 feet square. It was vaulted with four central pillars, and was about 15 feet high. The opening to the chapter house, from the cloisters, consisted of a central doorway with two side openings. These portions of the building ([Fig. 452]) are in the purest style of early pointed architecture, and, happily, they are in a fairly complete state of preservation, only the central pillars of the side openings, which had two lights, being wanting. These are shown as if restored in Fig. 453. The round caps and bases and the dog-tooth ornament are distinctive of the style. The round arched doorway on the north leads from the cloister to the slype. The chapter house appears to have been built before the middle of the thirteenth century. About a century later (1298-1328) Bishop Lamberton erected a new chapter house to the east (as shown on the Plan). Of this extension only the south wall remains, showing thirteen seats in arched recesses, the eastern seat being apart from the others. The return of the east wall remains, together with a portion of a continuous seat. The wall between the old and new chapter house is very much reduced in height. It contains an opening in the style of the entrance from the cloister, and has had a central doorway with side openings. The old chapter house then became the vestibule to the new one.
The size of the new chapter house was about 47 feet by 26 feet. It was groined in two bays, and probably the vault extended from wall to wall without central pillars.
Spottiswoode (page 34) says of Bishop Lamberton that he adorned the chapter house with “curious seats and ceeling,” and Fordun mentions that Joannes de Gourie, the twelfth prior, died in 1340, and was buried in “Novo Capitulo.”[19] Winton and Martine also state that on the completion of this addition to the chapter house, in 1318, the Cathedral of St. Andrews was dedicated by Bishop Lamberton, assisted by seven bishops and fifteen abbots, in presence of King Robert the Bruce and a great assembly of gentlemen. South of the original chapter house are the remains of what