Fig. 799.—Lincluden College. Plan.
Fig. 800.—Lincluden College. View from South-East.
Many of the Provosts of Lincluden were men of distinction. For instance, John Cameron (who died in 1446), besides holding important offices under the Crown, was afterwards made Bishop of Glasgow; John Winchester, who died in 1458, became Bishop of Moray; Andrew Stewart, who died in 1501, was appointed to the Bishopric of Moray; and William Stewart (1545) became Bishop of Aberdeen. Robert Douglas, the last Provost, enjoyed the benefice for forty years after the Reformation. Like other incumbents about that period, he endeavoured to dispose of the property for his own benefit, but was opposed by the prebendaries. Some of the latter continued to occupy the college till 1567;[144] and mass was sung in the church so late as 1586, under sanction of Lord Maxwell. The reversion of the provostry fell to William Douglas of Drumlanrig, grand-nephew of the last Provost. Lincluden was erected into a temporal barony in 1565, and subsequently passed into the hands of the Earl of Nithsdale, whose descendant, Captain Maxwell of Terregles, has done much for the repair and preservation of what remains of this charming old building.
A few traces of the original Norman masonry have been discovered. The church seems to have occupied the same site as the existing building, and to have consisted of a nave, 56 feet by 20 feet, and a choir of the same width. There was a north aisle, 9 feet wide, with cylindrical pillars and a depressed arcade. A south aisle probably also existed. The western door (4½ feet wide) can be traced, which had a semicircular arch of several orders. These facts were all ascertained during recent excavations.[145]
The Plan (see [Fig. 799]) shows the arrangements of the church of the fifteenth century and the other buildings, so far as preserved. The church consisted of a choir, which is in a fair state of preservation, except the roof and vaulting, the former of which has disappeared since Grose’s time. It is separated by a stone screen, with a wide doorway, from the nave and transept, which are greatly demolished, only the walls of the south transept and part of that of the south aisle of the nave now remaining. The choir is without aisles, and consists of three bays. It is 44 feet in length by 19 feet 6 inches in breadth internally. The nave and transept measured about 56 feet in length from the choir screen, and the nave appears to have contained three bays, with a window in each. It had an aisle on the south side. The responds of the piers still partly exist at the east and west ends. The nave and transept were about the same size as the original nave—viz., 56 feet long, the former being 20 feet and the aisle 12 feet broad.