BLANTYRE PRIORY, Lanarkshire.
The fragmentary ruins of this structure are situated on the left bank of the Clyde near Bothwell, at a point where the river forms a sudden bend from west to north, and where the priory is confronted on the opposite side by the great donjon of Bothwell Castle. The eastern walls of the priory stand on the very edge of a precipice, which rises perhaps 80 or 100 feet above the river. The buildings at this part are situated on fairly level ground, but immediately to the west the ground rises rapidly, so that the cloister garth (Fig. [1417]) and the western enclosing walls are on a considerably higher level than the main buildings. The ruins cover a space of ground measuring about 150 feet from east to west by about 115 feet from north to south. The western enclosing wall is from 5 to 10 feet in height, and the northern wall stands to the height of about 10 feet. The southern wall is nearly all gone, except a part at the return of the buildings at the east and west ends.
At the north-east corner stands a two-storied structure, the walls of which, except the south one, are almost entire. This was probably the prior’s house. It enters by a doorway at the west end of the south wall, and adjoining the door there appears to have been a stair to the upper floor (which is the floor shown on the Plan), but the place is in so confused a state with ruins and vegetation, that little regarding its arrangement can be made out. The house contained two rooms, one at each end, with the stair between. There are a fireplace and a window in each gable, and the eastern window looks straight across the river to the castle donjon. Along the north side of the house the ground is steep and inaccessible. On the south side of this house there was a courtyard with a building at the east end, the end wall of which still stands two stories high, in continuation of the gable of the prior’s house.
Adjoining this to the south is an apartment said, by the local guide, to be the chapel. Of this, however, almost nothing remains, except a part of the west wall, in which there is a stoup (Fig. [1418]) hollowed out of a stone wrought with all the appearance of a corbel, like those found in the castles. On the face of the corbel is an incised cross. It is this feature which has obtained for the apartment the name of the chapel. There is a window in the west wall above the stoup, but with nothing of
Fig. 1417.—Blantyre Priory. Plan.
an ecclesiastic character about it. This building does not appear to have been the church. It is more likely that the latter was placed somewhere about the line of the south boundary wall. It could not have stood anywhere outside of what is shown in the Plan on the north side, as in all this locality the ground is inaccessible.
A ruined fragment stands at the south-east corner of the monastery. It is a vaulted apartment, commanding the long reach of the river before