east-lothian-1924/05-104

Transcription

HADDINGTON.] -- HISTORICAL MONUMENTS (SCOTLAND) COMMISSION. -- [HADDINGTON.

Chalmers and also compares the passage in
Knox's Historie of the Reformation, p. 67. On
that page in Crawford's edition we are told the
fathers of Knox's three pupils (Douglas of
Longniddry and Cockburn of Ormiston) solicited
him to take them with him to the Castle of
St. Andrews, to which he was retiring as a
refuge (1547). There he " red untoe thame ane
Catechisme, accompt quhairof he caussit thame
gif publicklie in the Paroche Kirk of St.
Andrews. He red mairover unto thame the
evangell of John, proceiding quhair he left at
his departing from Langniddrie, quhair before
his residence was ; and that lecture he red in
the chapell within the Castell, at a certane
hour."

1 Caledonia iv., p. 525 ; 2 Life of Knox,
(ed. 1839), p. 26.

ix. N.E. 23 March 1920

SITES.

The O.S. maps indicate sites as follows:-

66. Gladsmuir Kirk about 1/2 mile N.E. of
Hodges ix. S.E.

67. Longniddry Castle iv. S.E.

HADDINGTON.

ECCLESIASTICAL STRUCTURES.

68. Parish Church, Haddington.-The church
of St. Mary the Virgin stands on the left bank
of the Tyne, 150 yards above the Nungate
Bridge and outside the body of the burgh
(cf. Introd. p. xxix). It is cruciform on plan
(fig. 74), comprising an aisled nave of five bays
and an aisled choir of four bays with unaisled
transepts; above the crossing rises a massive
tower. From the north aisle of the choir there
projects the pre-Reformation re-vestry partly
built in the 17th century and since then used as
a burial aisle. The nave has been altered and
restored and is still the parish church ; the
other divisions have become ruinous but are
now conserved by H.M. Office of Works.
St. Mary's is one of the largest churches
built in the great building period of the late
14th to the late 15th century, of which its
ordinance and detail are typical. It has the
blank east walls in transepts and choir aisles
peculiar to Scotland and the bipartite bay

38

design. The nave, now covered with a plaster
ceiling, was probably ceiled in timber, but all
other parts with rib vaulting. The total length
is 206 feet and the breadth 62 feet ; the tran-
septs, 30 feet broad, have a total length of 113
feet.
The various portions appear to have been
built concurrently or in close sequence. The
stone employed in the eastern divisions is
mainly a reddish sandstone, but there is a
slight admixture of grey and this grey stone
is almost entirely used in the upper part of
the tower and in the western divisions.
To form the present parish church the eastern
archways of the nave were built up some
time prior to 1789, while in 1811, when galleries
were introduced, the nave arcade was height-
ened and the aisle roofs, which till then were
at the height of the aisle roofs of the choir,
were reconstructed at a higher level ; this last
alteration is clearly defined externally on wall
and buttress.
The lateral walls are divided into bays by
buttresses rectangularly disposed and termin-
ating in crocketted and gabletted pinnacles ;
from the choir buttresses sprang flying butt-
resses, only one of which remains, to transmit
the thrust of the high vault. At the corners of
choir and transepts the buttresses are set on
the angle, some still enriched with canopied
niches and heraldic achievements, but those at
the western corners of the nave aisles are
disposed rectangularly to the walls. Massive
rectangular piers at the junctions of transepts
and aisles provide abutment for the thrust of
the aisle arches and transept vaults.
There is a single large window in each gable
and an aisle and a clerestory window, one
built up, to each bay. The choir aisle windows
are single mullioned, while the nave aisle
windows have double mullions with sills at a
higher level, but the two east windows of the
(structural) nave aisles are similar to the choir
windows and perhaps indicate the western
termination of the service choir. The tracery
in the east window is modern, but what
remains in the windows of the choir is original
(fig. 76). In the nave the tracery has been for
the most part restored or renewed in recent
times. The east and west windows, of four and
six lights respectively, and the three light trans-
ept windows rise above the arcades, and the