east-lothian-1924/05-220

Transcription

WHITEKIRK AND] INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS IN EAST LOTHIAN. [TYNNINGHAME.

The tower contained three storeys and a
garret above the vault of the crossing, as
indicated on the exterior by offsets. The
upper of these breaks and returns round the
pointed window on each face of the tower as a
label. These windows have splayed jambs in
two orders and are divided by a central
mullion bifurcating at the springing.

INTERNAL DIMENSIONS.
Chancel, 381/3 feet from east to west.
203/4 feet from north to south.
Nave, 501/4 feet from east to west.
223/4 feet from north to south.
Tower, 151/2 feet from east to west.
193/4 feet from north to south.
The walls average 31/2 feet in thickness.

WOODWORK.- The arcaded wooden front of
the north gallery (fig. 168), dating from the
17th century, was reported to have been taken
from Tynninghame Church.
MATRIX STONE. - In the south-east angle of
porch and nave is the matrix stone of a
memorial brass. It is 5 inches thick, 4 feet
9 inches wide and 9 feet 4 inches long.
HISTORICAL NOTE. - The lands of Hamere
with the parish church, afterwards known
as Whitekirk, were conferred by David I
on the canons of Holyrood as part of the
foundation, and the grant was confirmed by
successive bishops of St. Andrews, by William
the Lion and Alexander III. A document in
the Vatican Library, obviously written after
the Reformation, gives an account of the
church as follows.1 It begins:- "In 1294,
when Edward First of England had defeated
the Scots army near Dunbar, many of the army
fled into that castle, then commanded by Black
Agnes, Countess of Dunbar, who . . . made
her escape by water in the night in order to
have gone to Fife." Being injured, however,
and the wind being contrary she put in at
"the shore nearest to Fairknowe, to which she
was carried." A hermit advised her to drink,
in faith, from the holy well, which she did and
was immediately recovered from her injuries;
and "in the year following she built a chapell
and a chantry in honour of our Lady, and
endowed it with ten merks a year for ever."
But it must be remarked that, apart from the
fact that the battle of Dunbar was in 1296,
Black Agnes married Patrick, 9th Earl of

127

Dunbar, in 1324 and her connection with a
siege of that place was in 1338, when she
defended it successfully. The account con-
tinues: "The number of miracles performed
at this well was so great that in 1309, John
Abernethy, with the assistance of the monks
at Melrose, procured a shrine to be erected
and dedicated to the Holy Mother. In 1413
there were no less than 15,653 pilgrims of all
nations, and the offerings were equal to 1422
merks. In 1430 James First . . . built the
Abbey of the Holy Cross at Edinburgh, and
took the Chapell of Fairknowe into his pro-
tection, added much to it by building houses
for the reception of pilgrims, called it the
White Chapell, where he often went, and made
it a dependant on his own Abbey of the Holy
Cross. In 1439, Adam Hepburn of Hailes
built a choir, all arched with stone, agreeable
to the mode of Peter de Maine." The place
thus flourished, we are told, till in 1540, Oliver
Sinclair got leave to build a house near the
White Chapell, "in building of which he pulled
down the pilgrim's houses, and made use of
the stones for his own house." Finally, in
the course of the Reformation, offerings and
lands "were seized upon, and the shrine was
beat to pieces. That Holy Chapell . . was
made a parochial church . . and by them
called Whitekirk." As regards the closing
statement it must be pointed out that the name
'Whitekirk' is of a date long prior to the
Reformation. Fordun, who finished his history
c.1385, describing the plunder of the place by
the English in the invasion of February 1356,
speaks of it indifferently as alba ecclesia and
illa capella.2 Bower, in his expansion of the
same incident, after taking from Fordun how
"the English pirates" forced their way into
nostrae Dominae Albam Ecclesiam, situated in
the barony of "Hamyr" and spoiled the
image of Our Lady of its necklaces, rings,
bracelets and other valuable ornaments, pro-
ceeds to a vivid account of the robbery on the
testimony of a most reputable person who had
witnessed it as a twelve year old boy apud
Quhytkirk.3 In the record of visits by James
IV. to the place in 1491 and 1497 it is called
"the Quhyt Kirk," in which he made offerings
and paid for masses.4 James I., therefore,
could not have renamed it the 'White Chapel'
nor the Reformers "Whitekirk"; and the