In the interior (see [Fig. 885]), the opening of the east window being wider than on the exterior, the arch is larger and the springing is lower. It is moulded with a large filleted roll, and has a hood ([Fig. 887]). The roll rests on a round moulded cap, which crowns the angle shaft of the sconsion.
Fig. 888.
Temple Church,
Rear Arch of
Side Windows.
The side windows have also arch mouldings, which die against the splays of the jambs (see [Fig. 886]), and the hoods are terminated with roses, or animals like lizards, much decayed. The tracery is simple, and the large circle over the central light is peculiar. The sconsions are plain, but the sconsion arches are segmental and moulded (see [Figs. 885] and [888]). The two lancet windows to the west have hoods terminated with roses, and the sconsion arches are segmental and moulded. Beneath the windows a filleted roll runs round the building as a string course, and one course below it is a broadly splayed base course, with a lower base under it (see [Fig. 883]). These mouldings only extend round the older part of the structure, the newer portion at the west end having a separate base of a different character.
The east gable still retains its sloping cope, which has at the base a small gablet erected upon the skew putt, finished with a fleur-de-lys ridge. In the gable (see [Fig. 883]) over the east window there is a circular aperture, now blocked up; and on the apex there has been erected, in comparatively recent times, a plain bellcot, with pyramidal roof.
On a stone at the base of the bellcot the following Roman letters have been run in with lead—viz., V Æ S A C, and below these, M I H M. Round the corner of the same stone, on the north side, are the similar letters R I. The meaning of these letters has not been explained. Possibly the stone has been brought from somewhere else, where the context might have rendered the letters intelligible.
From the general style of the details of the building there can be no difficulty in fixing its date during the middle pointed period. Most of the mouldings are of an early character, but some of the features (such as the arch mouldings dying on the jambs) are later. Besides, in Scotland allowance must be made for backwardness, and we should be inclined to regard this structure as being of about the end of the fourteenth century. It is valuable as an example of the decorated period in Scotland, of which period few, if any, parish churches are now to be found.