In Abercrummie’s description of Carrick,[132] written in the end of the seventeenth century, the collegiate church is mentioned as being still entire, “being now used as the burial-place of the Earl of Cassillis, and other gentlemen who contributed to the putting of a roofe upon it, when it was decayed.” It is further mentioned that the “Colledge consisted of a rector and three prebends, whose stalls are all of them yet extant, save the rector’s.”
The houses or “stalls” of the prebends are now all gone, and the church is again roofless. The freestone has been taken away from many of the buttresses, and the tracery of the windows is broken and most of the windows built up.
The church as it now stands (Fig. [1272]) consists of a simple oblong 52 feet long by 18 feet wide internally, but there are evidences of its having been altered. There was a small sacristy on the north side, with a good pointed doorway leading into the church.
Fig. 1274.—Maybole Collegiate Church. Tracery in Windows.
Both in the north and south walls (Fig. [1273]) of the edifice there is a very narrow pointed and cusped window, which does not correspond with the other details of the building, and close to the narrow window in the south wall there is a dressed corner, now built against, which seems to indicate a complete change in the structure at this point. The east window and the two windows adjoining it in the north and south sides still retain part of their tracery (Fig. [1274]), which is of a late character. A recess with pointed arch-head for a tomb or an Easter sepulchre in the north wall of the choir (Fig. [1275]) contains mouldings enriched with imitations of the dog-tooth, and the arches of the south-west doorway (see Fig. [1273]) have also similar dog-tooth ornaments. The church having been founded in 1371, when the first pointed period (to which the dog-tooth belongs) had long passed away, there can be no doubt of the above ornaments being very late revivals, even if the style of their execution did not make that apparent.
The south-west doorway is, however, a good late adaptation or imitation of a thirteenth century design, like other imitations of early work which were common during the third pointed period. The doorway is surmounted by a shield bearing the Kennedy arms.
The west end (see Fig. [1273]) has a buttress in the centre, while in the inside opposite it the recess of a built up window is observable (see Plan), thus further indicating alteration. It seems probable that the church was originally small, and the narrow windows, above referred to, may possibly be remains of the original fabric. Then at a later date the
Fig. 1275.—Maybole Collegiate Church. Interior of East End.