stirling-1963-vol-1/05_086

Transcription

INTRODUCTION : THE MIDDLE AGES AND LATER

DOVECOTS
Only two Stirlingshire dovecots seem to be of 17th-century origin, and both these have been
rebuilt. Thus the one at Westquarter (No. 396), though incorporating a panel dated 1647, is
substantially of the 18th century; while the one at Bannockburn House (No. 392) bears what
is probably the date of its reconstruction (1768) as well as that of its origin (1698). All but the
ones at Polmaise (No. 391) and Carron House (No. 393) are rectangular on plan, with pent-
house roofs, and the one at Sauchie (No. 390) which is dated by a panel to 1700, is double.
Other good examples are to be seen at Drumquhassle (1711, Np. 398), where, as at Polmaise,
the potence is still in place, at Touch (1736, No. 389) and at Laraben (No. 399). The Carron
House example (No. 393) is an octagonal structure in brick, in keeping with the brick walls
of the kitchen-garden; it has lost its roof.

MARKET-CROSSES, SUNDIALS AND CARVED STONES
Only a single market-cross, that at Airth (No. 412), survives complete; it bears heraldic
decoration and a sundial, and was set up in 1697. What may have been the shaft of another
(No. 413), with a cubical sundial on its top, stands near Airth Castle and may have belonged to
the older village. The Stirling example (No. 401) is Victorian, but its unicorn finial comes from
an earlier cross.
Sundials of the ornate obelisk type, fashionable in the 17th and early 18th centuries, seem
once to have been fairly numerous; only four complete examples survive today, at Ballen-
cleroch (p. 360), Ballindalloch (No. 444) and Sauchieburn House (pp. 401f.), where there are
two; but imperfect examples may be seen at Auchenbowie (p. 334), Stirling Castle (p. 218)
and Leckie (p. 376), and fragments at Ballencleroch (p. 360) and Drumquhassle (p. 408). What
must have been a fine example, formerly existing at Orchard (No. 430), has disappeared and
cannot be traced. Horizontal dials mounted on shafts also occur, of which a typical example
may be seen at Howkerse (No. 419). Cubical sundials are common.
The important statuary remains at Stirling Castle, as well as the "Stirling Heads", are
dealt with elsewhere (pp. 196ff.), but some other examples of 16th- and 17th-century carving
also deserved to be mentioned. Among these are the figures and the fine Royal Arms on Mar's
Work (pp. 287ff.), the statuette of John Cowane that stands over the entrance to his
Hospital (p. 290), decorative window-pediments, particularly at Argyll's Lodging (pp. 279ff).)
and Airth Castle (p. 234), the doorway reset in Stirling High School (p. 304), the panels in
Dunmore Church (No. 411) and the carved oak chest at Cowane's Hospital (p. 292). An elabor-
ate reversing monogram is to be seen on a panel at Bardowie Castle (p. 256), and another at
Garrel Mill (No. 432).
Among minor carved details should be mentioned a large number of lintels, inscribed with
dates and initials; a few heads, rather reminiscent of tombstone cherubs (e.g. No. 448); an
occasional statuette (e.g. p. 407); and the small human figures incised on the Bruce Aisle at
Airth (p. 146). With these last should perhaps be compared the figure on the standing stone at
Knockraich (No. 60), as their similarity makes it hard to regard the latter as prehistoric.

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