To adapt the edifice to the Presbyterian system of worship, probably the very worst plan which could have been devised has been adopted, and is shown on the Plan by clear lines. The original fabric may be said to remain, but it is greatly deformed. As the tower opened into the unbuilt nave it had necessarily to be walled up, and has an entrance doorway left in the centre. This doorway, which is round arched, seems to be old,
Fig. 1166.—The Collegiate Church of Crichton. View from South-East.
and was probably brought from a building which appears to have formerly stood on the north side of the church. Across the interior of the tower a stone wall has been built to enclose the modern church. The portion of the tower outside this wall thus forms a vestibule, from which a stair
Fig. 1167.—The Collegiate Church of Crichton. Window on North Side.
leads to a west gallery fitted up in the enclosed portion of the tower. Another door has been slapped through the east wall to the outside, and an outer stair at the east end leads to an inserted gallery running across that end. One window and a sacristy or similar building on the north side have been done away with, to allow the erection of a passage for reaching another gallery, which runs along the north side of the chancel. The north transept has, perhaps, been worst used of all. A wall has been built between the moulded responds to a height of about 5 feet, and the whole area of the transept at this level is roofed over to form a burial vault. The south transept is not utilised in any way except as a sort of lumber place.
Instead of this unsuitable and costly arrangement, the area of the church as it stood would suffice to give more accommodation than is thus obtained, and that without sacrificing the dignity of the building, as has been done by the arrangements just described.
It would appear from a letter by the Rev. John Gourlay, the parish minister, to General Hutton, dated Crichton, 4th April 1789, that the