Fig. 1139.—St. Mungo’s Church. Monument of Lord Borthwick and his Wife.
over restoration. The effigies, which are remarkably well preserved, have been entirely coloured, and considerable traces of the colour still remain. The length of the arched recess in which the figures lie is 7 feet, and the depth of the recess 3 feet 8½ inches. The height to the arched recess is about 3 feet 6½ inches, and the total height of the monument is 10 feet 3 inches, and the width over the buttresses 8 feet 11 inches. The design is of a usual form, and the enrichments indicate a late date in the fifteenth century.
The Church of Borthwick was annexed by Chancellor Crichton to his newly erected College of Crichton. After the Reformation Borthwick was united to Heriot and Stow, and served by a reader, but in 1596 James VI. erected it into a separate parish. In 1606 the kirk-session complained that the church was falling into ruin for want of proper repair. Commissioners from the Presbytery met the complainers, and after deliberation they refused to “stent” themselves for the repair of the church, but offered instead to sell the vestry (see Plan) “as a family burial-place to any gentleman who would pay such a price as would enable them to repair the choir.”[104] An offer of the building was made to Sir James Dundas of Arniston, who ultimately purchased it, and with the money thus raised the church appears to have been repaired in a rough fashion. The chancel arch was built up and a gable wall erected above it, which thus became the east end of the church, and the apse was left outside. A gallery was then placed against the east gable. The structure remained in this condition till 1780, when it was destroyed by fire. The walls which survived the fire are those shown on the Plan (see Fig. [1136]). The vestry (now the Dundas burial vault) and south aisle, both having stone roofs, remain comparatively unscathed. The nave and the north wall of the chancel have entirely disappeared.
LADYKIRK CHURCH, Berwickshire.
This very complete and almost unaltered church stands on the high north bank of the river Tweed, nearly opposite Norham Castle. Before the Reformation the parish consisted of the two parishes of Upsetlington and Horndene. In 1296 the parson of the former swore fealty to Edward I., who, while endeavouring to arrange regarding the succession to the crown of Scotland, adjourned the Scottish Parliament from Brigham in England to an open field in Upsetlington. The existing church is said to have been built in 1500, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin by James IV., in gratitude for his delivery from being drowned by a sudden flood of the river Tweed.
The structure (Fig. [1140]) is a specially characteristic example of the Scottish church architecture of the period. It is a triapsidal cross church, without aisles, having an apsidal termination at the east end of the chancel and at the north and south ends of the transept. The body of the church and the transepts are covered with pointed barrel vaults, with ribs at intervals, springing from small corbels (Fig. [1141]); and the whole is roofed with overlapping stone flags (Fig. [1142]). The nave and chancel are 94 feet 6 inches in length by 23 feet 3 inches in width internally, and the transepts, which are very short, each measures 12 feet in depth from north to south by 19 feet in width. The side windows are of considerable width, but being entirely below the springing of the vault, they are low compared with the height of the church. The side walls rise greatly above the windows on the exterior, and have a heavy appearance, while the lofty vaults of the interior render the building dark. The arches
Fig. 1140.—Ladykirk Church. Plan.
which open from the main church into the transepts (see Fig. [1141]) are also kept below the springing of the main vault, and are therefore low, but the windows in the transepts are kept well up. To resist the pressure of the heavy vaults and roof the walls are well buttressed, and the buttresses terminate with the somewhat stunted pinnacles in vogue at the time. It will be noticed that the overlapping stone roofs are constructed in three distinct portions, viz., one roof extending over the whole of the nave and chancel, and two separate roofs over each transept. The roofs and vaults of each of the transepts terminate against a gable raised on the side walls of the main part of the church, and the transepts are entered by low arches, on which these gables rest.