The building of the central steeple, which had been partly carried out by Bishop Leighton, was finally completed by Bishop Elphinston about 1511. The tower was supported by the four pillars of the crossing. “It
Fig. 1010.—St. Machar’s Cathedral. Monument of Bishop Scougal in South-West Angle of Aisle.
was four storey high, and square, and had two battlements, and seems to have been about 150 foot high.”[45]
Bishop Leighton also built, in 1424, the north transept, or, as it was called, St. John’s Aisle, where the beautiful sculpture of that bishop’s effigy now lies inglorious beneath a rough brick arch (Fig. [1012]). His tomb appears to have been entire when Orme (who died about 1725) wrote his description of the cathedral.[46] He describes it as an effigy in pontificalibus, on an altar tomb with a canopy, under which is this inscription: “Hic jacet bone memorie Henricus de Lichtoun,” &c. Huddled in behind the figure there is a large stone slab with an inscription, which can hardly be seen on account of the rubbish and ivy.
The south transept was built by Bishop Dunbar in 1522. And so recently as the time of Orme large portions of it, which have now disappeared,
Fig. 1011.—St. Machar’s Cathedral. Part of East Pier from Transept.
were standing, if, indeed, it was not almost entire at that date. Orme speaks of the “top of this aisle” as having then been taken down for the miserable purpose of furnishing stones for new buildings at the college; and he also mentions large windows as then existing, all of which have vanished. Indeed, almost nothing of this transept now remains except the tomb of the founder, Bishop Gavin Dunbar (Fig. [1013]), and an empty tomb to the left of it, which were complete when Orme wrote. The latter contained the effigy of a bishop, “a lion at his feet, and under his head a pointed helmet for a cushion; arms, a lion rampant queue fourche debruised by a bend charged with three escallops.”[47] This was probably a tomb of the end of the sixteenth century. The foliage round the arch, modelled from seaweed, is carved with great spirit. Dunbar’s tomb is perhaps the finest of the minor pieces of work now remaining here. It is remarkable how it escaped destruction on various occasions, and especially in 1693, when a gang of religious fanatics broke his effigy in pieces, defaced the inscription, smashed the hanging cusped tracery round
