Fig. 1168.—The Collegiate Church of Crichton. Sedilia.
tower, with probably the transepts, then sufficed for the congregation. He says, “There is a high building upon the one end where the bell hangs, and where divine service was lately performed, but since considerable reparations were given, it is now again altered to what is called the quire.”
The original entrance to the church was on the south side of the chancel (see Fig. [1165]). It has been partly destroyed and is now built up, but portions of its moulded jambs can still be seen. The mouldings are of a common kind, consisting of two beads separated by a hollow. The doorway has been 3 feet 10 inches wide. Above the doorway a window has been roughly hacked through the wall, and on the inside of the sill there are rudely carved the initials P. L., with the date 1729. These are probably the initials of the worthy who contrived certain of the alterations above described. At the same time two small windows have been knocked through the side walls beneath the original windows on the north and south sides nearest the east end. One of these is shown in the view Fig. [1166], and the other on the north side is shown on the Plan. These windows have been referred to by Mr. Muir and in the Architectural Publication Societies Dictionary as examples of lychnoscope or offertory windows; but undoubtedly they were inserted to give light beneath the east gallery, and are of no older date than last century. Only one of the original windows, that on the north side, retains the original tracery (Fig. [1167]). Indications of the tracery of the transept windows also still remain. The choir has been divided into three bays by buttresses, which have the numerous set-offs of the period, and are finished with the ordinary late pinnacles. The high blank wall over the windows, which generally
Fig. 1169.
The Collegiate Church of Crichton.
Arms in West Wall.
accompanies the pointed barrel vaults, has been in this case lightened by the introduction of a false parapet (see Fig. [1166]), with enrichments of square shaped flowers, both in the main cornice and in the upper cornice, which represents the cope of the parapet. But here there is no parapet wall, the eaves of the roof being placed where the parapet cope would be in ordinary circumstances. This is a plan often adopted in domestic buildings, from which the idea was, no doubt, borrowed in this instance. The transepts are without buttresses and have a bare appearance. Adjoining the south entrance doorway there are what appear to be the remains of a sedilia (Fig. [1168]). The lower portion is entirely concealed, and the eastern shaft and recess are almost blocked. In the north wall opposite the original entrance there can be seen on the inside the indications of a round arched doorway, now built up, which probably led to the sacristy or a chapel, now destroyed, as already mentioned. Five feet east from this blocked doorway there are slight remains of a sixteenth or seventeenth century monument (see Plan), now cut away to permit of the erection of the gallery over, and it seems probable that from this monument was taken the coat of arms (Fig. [1169]) now built into the wall which closes up the west archway of the tower. The shield bears the Nicolson arms, and are probably those of Agnes Nicolson, third wife of Patrick, first Lord Elibank, who possessed the ecclesiastical lands of the Collegiate Church of Crichton about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Mr. Billings shows another coat of arms on the outside of the turret stair, but this part of the building is now a dense mass of ivy. The turret stair is in the north wall of the nave, and is placed at some distance from the tower. Fig. [1170] shows the piscina in the south transept. Across this