Fig. 1087.—The Collegiate Church of Rosslyn. Lower Chapel or Sacristy, looking West.
erected in this country at the time, has doubtless led to these attempts to attribute the design to a foreign architect or a foreign country, where richly decorated structures exist.
Fig. 1088.
The Collegiate Church of Rosslyn. Arms of Sir W. Sinclair’s First Wife.
But this amount of decoration, being so exceptional in Scottish edifices, seems to have proved misleading. No parallel to Rosslyn has, so far as we know, been discovered abroad, and it is unnecessary to go so far afield in search of a model. The leading principles of the design are really Scottish, and it will be found, on careful analysis, that Rosslyn Church presents a rich and finished epitome, both as regards constructive and decorative elements, of the Scottish ecclesiastical architecture of the third or late pointed period. The plan of the east end of Rosslyn Church so closely resembles that of the choir of Glasgow Cathedral, that there is hardly room to doubt that the latter was the model after which the former was designed. The disposition of the pillars in the two buildings agrees exactly, the side aisles in both being connected by an eastern