“The second head refers to the mode in which the strings and base courses would be stopped against the rubble. According to my drawings there has been a string on the north side of the nave, which dropped nearly two feet, has also run along the ashlar work of the chancel, but only two feet or so of it remains. On the south side this feature is entirely destroyed. The base, both on north and south sides of the nave, returns round the chancel gable and there terminates. Whether they were dropped also I cannot tell, as these drawings were made previous to the later reduction of the soil to the original level.[269] An important point in this junction of rubble and ashlar walls must be noted, viz., that while the ashlar walls are 2 feet 7 inches thick, the rubble wall on the south side is only 2 feet 5 inches, and that on the north 2 feet 3 inches. The walls meet flush on the outside, and on the inside the ashlar corner is splayed off in accommodation to the thinner rubble, and those who managed thus would find no difficulty in such trivialities as a string or a base.
“Under the third head it is queried whether the ‘Norman builders’ were likely to show such tender mercy to a rubble fragment? I presume ‘Norman’ here means Anglo-Norman, the conquering race, who looked with contempt on all that pertained to those they held in thrall. Civil changes notwithstanding, in Bute it was otherwise. There the same traditions were handed down from Celt to Scot, and the name of St. Blaan was reverenced, not merely on local grounds, but as being still more intimately associated with a northern see. The very curious melange at the east end of the chapel is attributed to one of those ‘accidents’ which, from a variety of sources, often befel buildings in ancient times. The late Mr John Baird, at a meeting of the Architectural Institute of Scotland held in Glasgow a good many years ago, suggested that the original termination had been an apse, but the chancel being found too small, this feature was demolished and the building extended to its present limits. Notwithstanding all that has been said, I consider both the apse and the accident theories to be at once untenable and unnecessary, and will, as briefly as possible, give three criteria on which I regard the proof of antecedency in date and construction of the rubble work ultimately to depend, and to be incontrovertible. First, in a rubble wall of any posterior date, built to conjoin with a previous ashlar one, it is only reasonable to suppose it would have been gauged to the same thickness, so that the respective wall faces might be flush, both externally and internally, so as to avoid the very awkward junction which there really has been. Second, this rubble wall must necessarily have been carried to the same height and level, in the wall-head, as the ashlar built portion, instead of being dropped nearly three feet below it, as the present rubble work really is. Third, the existing Romanesque structure shows that freestone, both red and white, was readily to be had by importation or otherwise in Bute, during the twelfth century, and ever afterwards, and it is beyond all reason and experience, that in the chancel especially rubble of some local rock should have been adopted when the superior quality previously in use could be so easily obtained.
“These three criteria combined, the thinness (relatively) of the rubble walling, the lower level of the wall-head, and the extreme improbability of any subsequent builders being reduced to the necessity of falling back on rubble, lead irresistibly to the conviction that on this site there existed a much smaller and more ancient chapel, of which the sacrarium, carefully respected by all subsequent builders, now alone remains.”
At the special request of Mr. P. Macgregor Chalmers, author of the work A Scots Mediæval Architect, we insert in this Volume extracts, revised and approved by him, from his reply to our criticism contained in Vol. II. pp. 378-382, in the hope that they may be found to throw additional light on the late period of Scottish architecture. It must, however, be understood that we are not to be held as concurring in all Mr. Chalmers’ views. Our notice of his work was written after our second volume was to a large extent in type, and we should not have quoted Mr. Pinches’ reference to church building in Galloway in 1508 (p. 378), as Mr. Chalmers had already shown in his work that this was a mistake; and on the same page we should have acknowledged his labours on the Melrose inscriptions. Mr. Chalmers says:—
“You tabulate four formal objections to my work (p. 380). The first appears to be that I have adopted a certain opinion, which differs from yours; and you think my work is therefore a ‘fiction,’ a ‘romance,’ a ‘dream.’ The second objection, based on your inference that a man who had a Scots name was a Frenchman by extraction, because he was born in Paris at a time when Scotsmen were rife in France, need not be taken seriously. The answer to your third and fourth objections is that I have proved, from original documents quoted, that ‘Morow’ is ‘Murray,’ and that the variation in spelling, indicated in the Melrose inscriptions, is the variation for Murray. When you have grasped the importance and significance of my deduction from the evident choice of Melrose for the memorial inscriptions, I feel certain you will find more than ‘fiction’ in my work.
“I stated that the rood screen at Glasgow was erected by Archbishop Blacader, and that it was probably begun about the year 1492. The charter evidence is that the archbishop founded the two altars in their present position in the base of the screen, and that he founded the altar for which the screen was erected, the altar of Holy Cross. As the screen encroaches considerably on the original length of the choir, being of great depth from west to east, it is natural to suppose that its erection would entail the remodelling of the choir fittings. It was in the archbishop’s time, then, that the new choir stalls were constructed. From the measurements given in the contract for this work, between ‘the dene and cheptour of Glasgw on the tapairt, and Mychell Waghorn, wrycht, on the toder pairt,’ it is evident that the carved canopy work was carried as a cornice across the east or choir side of the screen. Rejecting my work, you state that the screen at Glasgow was probably built by Bishop Cameron, who died in 1446. You have no charter evidence to support you. You have only the mouldings and the sculpture of the two periods to found your opinion upon. In the illustration I send you (Fig. [1]) I show the earlier mouldings at A and the later mouldings of the screen at B. Students can now estimate the value of your opinion. The only moulding in the aisle of Car Fergus, of Blacader’s time, is the vaulting rib which I show at C. This, you say, is a ‘coarse’ moulding. But the coarseness is not apparent when you compare it with the rib in the
Fig. 1.