stirling-1963-vol-1/05_168

Transcription

No. 131 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 131
with an ornamental string-course round it at half its
height; at each of the corners of the cap-house there is a
crocketed finial (Pl. 19 A). The roof of the tower is slated.
The roof of the nave joins the E. face of the tower in a
raggle, and its ridge interrupts the string-course that
divides the first and second stages. Above the string-
course there can be seen a raking water-table intended to
receive a nave roof, which was never constructed, at a
height of 7 ft. 8 in. above the existing one; in accord with
this arrangement mural passages were originally con-
structed to lead from the first-floor room of the tower
to a wall-head walk on either side of the projected high

[Plan Inserted]
Fig. 54. Holy Rude Church, Stirling (No. 131); the
tower

nave, but with the change of plan these were replaced by
similar openings broken out below the level of the string-
course (Pl. 19 B). Traces of this change are seen in the
facts that the down-going steps of the mural passages,
leading to the low-level doorways, are not bonded into
the walls; that the soffits of the passages are stepped
upwards instead of downwards, indicating that the
passages were originally intended to rise, not to descend;
and that the heads of the lower openings are formed of
ashlar blocks as they occur in their courses, and are not
provided with lintels. Another result of placing the nave
roof at its present level has been that a small opening in
the E. wall of the first-floor room, originally intended to
look into the upper part of the nave, has had to be built
up and used for housing the end of the ridge-timber of
the nave and one of the roof-struts.
At the base of the W. face of the tower can be seen
some traces of the original main entrance to the church
(Pl. 19 C); this was built up in 1818, and the large W.
window extended downwards into a part of its space, but
the moulded bases of its jambs are still in place and the
edge of the jambs can be seen, to a height of 6 ft., in
race-bond with the infilling. Beside it on the N. is an
inserted door to the stair-tower, originally reached
internally (infra). The W. window has a splayed sill and
a pointed head with a label moulding which finishes on
carved stops. The tracery has been renewed. On the first
and second floors ¹ there are lancet windows with cusped
heads and label mouldings finishing on stops. those of the
first-floor room having stone seats in their embrasures.
The third-floor windows, which are square-headed, have
been slightly widened; they may originally have been
lancets. The stair-windows are high, narrow loops,
chamfered outside and splayed inside; they are set one
above another, six facing W. and five N. A final external
feature of the tower, which often attracts notice, is the
pitting of the masonry as if by musketry or grapeshot;
it is locally believed that these marks are the result of
firing from the Castle, but as it is only the N. side of the
tower that directly faces the Castle, and these marks
occur on all four sides and on the W. end of the N. aisle
as well, where they are particularly heavy, this theory can
hardly be accepted as a full explanation.
The interior of the tower at ground level is divided
from the nave by a lofty, pointed arch rising from
clustered responds. The bases of the responds resemble
those of the W. doorway, while their capitals are of a
compressed bell-shaped section; the abaci are straight-
sided. There is a groined and ribbed vault in which the
ribs radiate from a central aperture left for the hoisting
of bells. The existing external door to the stair is a late
insertion; its head has no lintel, but is formed of the
longish blocks of the original ashlar. The original stair-
entrance must have opened from the NW. corner of the
ground floor, but this corner was evidently squared off,
and the internal door eliminated, at some time in the 19th
century to permit of the erection, on the W. wall, of seven
marble panels commemorating some noted benefactors
of the burgh. The stair rises to the cap-house and parapet,
giving access to all the floors. It provides clear evidence
of the tower's having been built in two successive phases,
with an appreciable period between them when the
completed part stood open, as, up to the height of the
first floor, the ashlar of the inner face is considerably
weathered while at the higher levels it shows almost no
weathering. At first-floor level, too, the character of the
steps changes, the lower ones running straight out from
the newel and the upper ones showing a cavetto cut in
the riser at their inner ends; and on the first-floor doors
and windows there are masons' marks similar to those
on second-period work in the N. choir-aisle (p. 137). The
N. and S. walls of the first-floor room are intaken on
pointed arches; at their E. ends are the entrances of the
mural passages that lead to the parapets of the nave,

1 The second floor occupies the lower part of the uppermost
stage of the tower.
-- 133

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