Fig. 1217.—Carmelite Friars’ Monastery. Interior of Choir.
The church stands at the west end of Queensferry, on the north side of the street, and the description of its situation in the oldest extant charter relating to it, which is of the year 1457, is quite intelligible at this time. James Dundas of Dundas grants “to God and the Virgine Mary, and brethren of the Order of the Virgine Mary of Mount Carmel, and their successors, a piece of ground lying in the town of the Ferry, with the pertinents, with the yard and green adjacent to the church of the Virgine Mary, and whole houses builded in form of a monastrie, as also that other piece of ground lying betwixt the burn which runs near the cross of the said town on the east parts [this burn can still be identified where it comes down by the road immediately to the west of the town house] and the highway [the present main street of Queensferry] and ditch that goes towards Echline Fig. 1218.—Carmelite Friars’ Monastery. Section through Choir. and the sea on the north parts.” The “houses builded in form of a monastrie” have all disappeared, except a portion of the north wall, seen in shadow in the accompanying view from the north (Fig. [1215]). Fig. 1219.—Carmelite Friars’ Monastery. View from South-West. The monastic buildings were on the north side of the church, between it and the sea. The above wall, which stands on the shore of the Frith of Forth, at the distance of about forty paces northward from the church, determines the width of the monastery from north to south, while its length from east to west can also be fairly well ascertained. The eastern buildings of the monastery occupied the position seen on the left part of
