at the west side of the south transept of Melrose is in spirit so very like the work at Rosslyn that, had it been included in the illustrations of the latter, only those who have local knowledge would have detected it. The same remark applies to the south doorway from Dalkeith Church, given further on. A striking resemblance also occurs between the mouldings of the sacristy doors at Lincluden and Bothwell and the details of the clerestory windows at Rosslyn. In all these examples the mouldings consist of an outer and inner shaft, separated by a large hollow, containing carved work; and the shafts have, in every case, caps and bases treated in a similar manner.
The soffit cusping so common in the arches at Rosslyn is a decoration of the most frequent occurrence throughout Scotland; at this period, indeed, there is hardly an arched tomb recess in the country which is not so decorated. Carved rosettes set in hollows, which abound everywhere at Rosslyn, are likewise the common decoration of the period, both in churches and castles. Similar decorative enrichments are also very common in Tudor buildings in England, as, for example, in Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster, where also the small figures so frequent at Rosslyn above the caps and on buttresses, &c., find their counterpart, thus showing an association of ideas with English rather than foreign work.
Fig. 1091. The Collegiate Church of Rosslyn. Base Mouldings and Lower String Course, with Peculiar Moulding above the latter.
The doorways at Rosslyn, with the porches formed in front of them by arches thrown between the buttresses, are paralleled by the doorways at Glasgow Cathedral; Trinity College, Edinburgh; and St. Salvator’s, St. Andrews. The engrailed cross which enters so largely into the decoration of Rosslyn, being employed all along the arched roof of the aisles and of the lower chapel, and forming the motive for the tracery of some of the windows at the east end, is peculiarly local, being the distinctive feature of the St. Clair arms, while the loop tracery in many of the windows is of common occurrence in Scotland. A number of details illustrated in Fig. [1092], being chiefly the corbels of niches, have a very marked resemblance to the similar carvings at Trinity College, Edinburgh. Those containing the fox preaching to the geese and the dromedary are specially interesting. Other examples (such as Fig. [1093]) show that the character of the foliage is the same as that of many of our Scottish churches. Much of the carving at Rosslyn has considerable affinity with the late wood work in English churches (see Fig. [1082]).
These comparisons are probably enough to prove that Rosslyn Church was built after the manner and style of its age and country, and only differs from other Scottish churches of the same period in possessing a superabundance of rich detail and carving in excess of what is usually found.[86]
The transepts, which project two bays to the north and south, were obviously intended to be two stories high, and probably of the same height as the clerestory walls of the choir. Indeed, a part of the east wall of the north transept exists of this height. The walls of the transept are well buttressed, as if to maintain a vault, and there are no windows in the existing lower part of the transepts, the intention probably being to light them with large traceried windows at each end, as in Trinity College.
The portions of the transepts and crossing which have been completed are too small to enable it to be clearly determined how these parts of the structure were intended to be carried out and vaulted. The west gable
