dumfries-1920/04-072

Transcription

INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS IN DUMFRIESSHIRE.

Canons Regular of Jedburgh, the Abbey of Holywood (de sacro nemore; Saint Boyse)
or Dercongal ("oak of Congal") for Premonstratensians in Nithsdale, and the house
of Franciscan Friars in the town of Dumfries. Of these only a site or vague relics
remain. What still survived of Holywood was used in 1779 as a quarry for the new
parish church. ¹ The two bells of the abbey also have found refuge in the church.
The same general condition applies to the hospitals at Sanquhar (No. 572), How-
Spital (Annan), and Spital (Dumfries), the latter two preserving the name, ² and to
the chapelry at Trailtrow.
But churches on the West March had a hard time like everything else. It has
been shown how Annan Church became a fortress, and how the new fortress became a
church (p. xlvi.). Also how the vocation of the Armstrongs and their like was inimical
even to sacred buildings, so that by the beginning of the 17th century many mediæval
fabrics were in a ruinous condition (pp. xxxvi., xlv.). The thrifty combination of
parishes in the course of the same century, with the provision of one new church in
place of two or three older ones, further contributed to the disappearance of the original
structures. There was thus a fresh building period early in the 17th century, and there
is evidence of another about a hundred years later. Garvald Church (No. 355) was a
reconstruction of 1617, and is now a ruin. Durisdeer Church (No. 152) is a large
composite Renaissance building of the late 17th century, and still in use. The older
church of Mickle Dalton (No. 96) is of a few years later, but has been abandoned for
the modern edifice.
The earliest fragments of mediæval building are St Cuthbert's Chapel at Moffat
(No. 383), some part, perhaps, of the late church at Glencairn (No. 229), and an arched
recess within Canonbie Churchyard (No. 42), all probably of the 13th century. To
these must now be added, as the result of excavation in the course of the summer
of 1915, the foundations and part of the walls of Old Hoddom Church beside the Annan
(No. 271). The Roman streets and buildings at Birrens provided its stones. The
chancel is rectangular, inside and out; the chancel arch is comparatively narrow;
and the dimensions of the building correspond very closely to those of St Helen's,
Cockburnspath. ³ One or two minute portions of painted glass were found, of the type
known from Coldingham Priory, ⁴ which are of a date at the close of the 13th or the
beginning of the 14th century. Certain of the cross-slabs found beside the church
also appear to be of the 13th-century date.
Crosses. - The sculptured crosses are few in number, and some are represented
only by fragments. All are overshadowed by the magnificent monument of the
Ruthwell Cross, which is unique as furnishing also the text of a fragment of an early
poem now lost in this linguistic form. The whole subject of the Ruthwell Cross,
however, occupies a special place in the Appendix. The only other complete examples
are the much-worn one at Thornhill beside the Nith (No. 531), and the late mediæval
cross at Merkland (No. 378). With the exception of this last, and that at Thornhill,
in which the decoration is wholly zoӧmorphic, all the examples, whether whole or
fragmentary, are of the Northumbrian or Anglian type, many displaying the char-
acteristic decoration of scroll foliage involving birds and other creatures. Among
the very numerous cross-slabs of north-eastern Scotland three only display this motive
- the Hilton and Tarbet cross-slabs at Invergordon, and the one at Mugdrum, Fife -

1 Buccleuch MSS., p. 69.
2 Chalmers, Caledonia, v. p. 154; Spittalriddinghill is north-west of Annan.
3 Berwickshire Inventory, No. 46.
4 Ibid., p. 40, No. 74.

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