first floor, were arranged in the usual manner. The dormitory occupied the east side, and had direct communication with the choir. The refectory was in the south range, and the pulpit from which one of the monks read during meals is yet preserved, with a few steps in the thickness of the wall leading up to it (see [Fig. 745]). The pulpit is also seen projecting on the exterior in Fig. 747. The west side was probably occupied by the lay brethren. A large fireplace, corbelled out on the exterior, was built in the east wall of the latter department, as shown in Fig. 754. There was an exterior door to the garden from the cloister walk on this side.
The nave, tower, and original choir were, without doubt, the earliest parts of the edifice. The two-story cloisters did not at first exist, as is apparent from the exterior window of the south wall of the choir, above referred to. Probably there was then an ordinary cloister walk running south from the principal doorway of the church, from which a one-story building would enter on the east, according to the usual plan, containing sacristy, chapter house, &c. Remains of a stone seat, which exist along the east wall of the ambulatory, may indicate the original position of the chapter house; and there are distinct evidences of alterations in the east wall, to the south of the existing chapter house. At first the refectory would probably be on the ground floor of the south range, and the dormitory may have been on the first floor over it. The above would be the arrangement of the monastery when built about the beginning of the thirteenth century, soon after it received the gift of Wester Aberdour from Allan Mortimer.
Less than a century later a complete remodelling of the edifice took place. The ground floor was converted into the ambulatory and heightened into two stories, and the new chapter house was erected to the east, with a doorway from the new cloister walk. At the same time, the then existing accommodation having been found too small, the old church was abandoned as such, and the tower and nave were converted into the abbot’s house, a new church being erected to the eastward. The evidences of the conversion of the church into the abbot’s house are quite distinctly apparent. The large arches in the east and west walls of the tower (see [Fig. 741]) were built up with pointed arches introduced in the inserted building, and the height of the nave and tower divided into two stories by the insertion of a round barrel vault carrying a floor. An extra thickness of 15 inches was added to the nave walls, so as to carry the inserted vault (see [Fig. 737]). A wing was also added to the tower in the position of a north transept, in order to provide another room on the first floor level, the north window of the tower being converted into a door. The south window was widened and furnished with a stone seat; but, as above mentioned, the arched head of both these windows is preserved. The north room is provided with a fireplace and garde-robe. The ragglet for the roof of the north addition is not built like those on the east and west sides of the tower, but is cut into the tower wall, thus showing it to be an
Fig. 748.—The Abbey of Inchcolm. Chapter House, looking East.
afterthought. The upper stories of the tower were remodelled, that over the first floor having a pointed barrel vault inserted, and the story over being made into a dovecot, with built nest recesses all round. A wider wheel stair was added at the south-east angle of the tower, to give access to the abbot’s house. The ground floor of nave and tower under the new arch became cellars; and a round aperture, 3 feet 8 inches in diameter, is provided in the floor of the tower for access from the cellar to the first floor. The upper floor of the nave now became the hall of the abbot’s house, having a large fireplace with overhanging hood built in the west wall, of which the remains still exist. Windows were also cut in the north wall to light the hall. The old door to the church was built up, and a new door provided from the cloister walk into the new church.
Fig. 749.—The Abbey of Inchcolm. Details of Chapter House.