stirling-1963-vol-1/05_157

Transcription

No. 130 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 130
by little beyond its foundations, appears to have com-
prised a nave with a N. aisle, a choir, transepts, each
with two eastern chapels, and a short presbytery. The W.
doorway of the nave remains, and may be ascribed to
the first part of the 13th century; assuming that the
normal building-sequence was adopted, it may be
supposed that at this period the presbytery and transepts
were already complete and that work was beginning upon
the nave. No doubt the whole church was finished before
the builders turned their attention to the free-standing
bell-tower, now the most conspicuous feature of the site,
which dates from the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries.
Even less is known of the development of the monastic
buildings, scant traces of which now survive, but if the
cloister was laid out at the same time as the church, they
too are likely to have been completed during the course
of the 13th century.
In 1350 it was reported that the monastery had been
seriously damaged by certain "diabolici homines" ¹ while
in 1378 the abbot and convent stated that "their
monastery had suffered from constant wars, their
chalices, books, and other altar ornaments and other
goods having been stolen, and their bell-tower struck by
lightning, whereby the choir is greatly ruined". ² These
complaints may have been exaggerated, and there is no
architectural evidence to suggest that the bell-tower was
extensively damaged at this time, but the misfortunes
that were suffered by the Abbey in the latter part of the
14th century may well have made necessary the extensive
scheme of reconstruction that seems to have been carried
out in late mediaeval times, when the N. wall of the nave
(cf. p. 127), the transept (cf. pp. 127 f.) and the chapter-
house (cf. p. 128) were to some extent rebuilt. A reference
to the abbot's new hall in 1520 suggests that the abbot's
lodgings, which appear to have been situated to the west
of the main complex of monastic buildings, were
reconstructed or extended at about the beginning of the
16th century. ³ The Abbey is said to have been "ruined
and cast down" ⁴ at the Reformation, and the site was
soon put to use as a quarry. Building materials may have
been removed from Cambuskenneth for use in Mar's
Work, Stirling, in about 1570 (cf. No. 230), while in the
17th century the ruins provided dressed stones for
Cowane's Hospital (cf. No. 231); it is said, too, that the
village of Cambuskenneth is to a large extent constructed
of materials obtained from this source. ⁵ Slezer's view of
about 1693 suggests that considerable remains of the
church still existed in his day, ⁶ but by the time that
Grose visited the site, a century later, there was nothing
to be seen "except a few broken walls, the bell tower, and
staircase -- ; some remains of the garden are also to be
seen, and the burial place of K. James and his Queen:
no traces of the church remain". ⁷
In 1864 the site was excavated under the direction of
William Mackison, Town Architect of Stirling, who
prepared a detailed and well-illustrated report of the
excavations together with an account of the restoration
of the bell-tower, which was carried out to his specifica-
tions at about the same time. ⁸ Not all the excavator's
conclusions are acceptable, but the report is a valuable
one and has been extensively used in the preparation
of the following architectural description. In 1908 the
site was acquired by the Crown, and is now under the
guardianship of the Ministry of Works.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION. Apart from the massive
detached bell-tower, which has been restored and is in
good preservation, the Abbey buildings are now for the
most part represented by little more than their founda-
tions. Unfortunately, the measures taken to preserve
these foundations, which were revealed by the excavation
of 1864, have substantially altered their character, and
much of the masonry that is visible today is not mediaeval
but of comparatively recent origin. In the plan (Fig. 50)
such portions of the foundations, insofar as they can be
identified, have been distinguished from the mediaeval
work and designated "reconstituted foundations", Of
the mediaeval masonry, the excavator wrote "the stones
were of light and dark-brown freestone, of fine and coarse
qualities, and evidently from different quarries, perhaps
principally from the Abbeycraig quarry and other local
quarries; - as the district is famous for its freestones". ⁹
The remains include the church, a south cloister with
the sacristy, slype and chapter-house on its E. side, and
the refectory and, probably, a kitchen on the S. On the
W. there was presumably a cellarium, but this has now
vanished. To E. and SE. of the cloister there are other
buildings, which cannot now be identified with con-
fidence.

THE BELL-TOWER. As the only part of the Abbey that
stands complete, the tower (Pls. 14 and 15 A) may be
dealt with first. It stands free of the church, close to the
NW. corner of the nave. It is an exceptional structure
for Scotland, though it can be paralleled in the rather
similarly placed tower, of the 13th century, at Lindores
Abbey, ¹⁰ which abuts the church only at its SW. corner
and appears to be the latest item in the original sequence
of construction. Though resembling the church archi-
tecturally, the Cambuskenneth tower was presumably
built after the latter was completed, and may thus be

1 Cambuskenneth, No. 61
2 C.P.R., Letters, iv (1362-1404), 236; cf. also C.P.R.,
Petitions, i (1342-1419), 475 and 539.
3 Cambuskenneth, No. 207.
4 Easson, Religious Houses, 74, quoting Spottiswoode,
History of the Church of Scotland, i, 280.
5 History, 339.
6 Theatrum Scotiae (1693 ed.), pl. 6. The ruins that appear
in the foreground of this view are presumably those of Cambus-
kenneth, but it is difficult to identify the part of the building
shown by Slezer with any of the remains that exist today.
Slezer's view can hardly be from the east, as he states, as he
shows neither the W. end of the church nor the bell-tower;
his illustration may perhaps represent part of the S. wall
of the nave.
7 The Antiquities of Scotland, ii, 308.
8 Mackison, W., "Notes on the Recent Excavations made at
Cambuskenneth Abbey, and on the subsequent Restoration of the
Abbey Tower", in Papers read at the Royal Institute of
British Architects, 1866-7, 101 ff. See also the account by Sir
James Alexander in P.S.A.S., vi (1864-6), 14 ff.
9 Mackison, op. cit., 115.
10 Inventory of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, No. 434.

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