stirling-1963-vol-1/05_165

Transcription

No. 131 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 131
early part of the 15th century, this entry presumably re-
fers to the repair and restoration of an older church rather
than to the erection of a new one. In 1455, however,
much destruction was done in the burgh during dis-
orders that attended the fall of the Douglases, and the
church may well have been damaged or destroyed at this
time; certainly there is record of a grant made by
James II in the following year for the building of the
parish church of the burgh, ¹ and the heraldic evidence
(p. 135) confirms that the oldest portion of the present
structure is of this period. The scheme for the rebuilding
of the church was an ambitious one, and perhaps because
of this it was decided to complete the work in two stages,
the first being devoted to the erection of a new nave with
a W. tower, and the second to the completion of a new
choir and crossing.
Both the architectural and the historical evidence
become more abundant after the middle of the 15th
century, and the history of the church from that period
up to the present day may be followed in some detail. ²
The nave and the W. tower were probably begun soon after
1450 and the nave was probably completed within about
twenty years; it is of five bays and has N. and S. aisles of
the same length. At the E. end an extra bay was added to
the nave to serve as a temporary chancel until the erection
of the new choir. The W. tower was not completed, being
carried up only to the height of the nave roof. Almost
before the nave was finished wealthy burgesses began to
erect chantry chapels, which took the form of small
rectangular projections from the N. and S. aisles. The
oldest of these chapels, St. Andrew's Aisle, appears to
have been built by Matthew Forestar some time before
1483. while in 1484 St. Mary's Aisle was erected by
Adam Cosour. ³ Both these chapels stand on the N. side
of the nave; a third chapel, known as Bowye's Aisle, was
added to the S. side of the church, but the date of its
erection is not known. Soon after the beginning of the
16th century the second stage of the building programme
was begun. In 1507 an indenture was made between the
provost, baillies and council of Stirling and the Abbey
of Dunfermline, to which the church was appropriated,
by which the burgh undertook to build "ane gud and
sufficient queyr conformand to the body of the peroch
kirk". ⁴ The Abbey contributed to the scheme, but the
bulk of the cost was borne by the burgh. The construc-
tion of the choir was probably begun soon after 1507,
but work proceeded slowly, in 1523 there is mention of a
payment for timber for the choir of the church, perhaps
for the roof, but six years later John Couttis, master-
mason to the burgh, was still employed upon the "Rud
wark -- in the parocht kirk". ⁵ It is uncertain when work
stopped, but the choir and the presbytery were probably
completed by the time of the constitution of a college
of secular canons in the church some time before 1546. ⁶
The W. tower, too, which had been left unfinished in
about 1470, was by now raised to its full height. It is
clear, however, that the second stage in the rebuilding of
the church was never completed. There is evidence to
show that the builders contemplated the erection of a
substantial tower above the crossing, and the two massive
eastern piers were actually begun; they may also have
intended to build transepts. Work came to a standstill,
however, before the piers were completed and the
crossing itself remained unfinished; in consequence the
temporary chancel of the first building period remained
standing and the junction between nave and choir was at
best a makeshift one.
The church remained in this condition for about a
century although the internal arrangements were no
doubt much altered at the Reformation; in addition it is
known that a number of lofts and galleries were erected
within the building during the 17th century. In about
1656 the congregation was divided by a controversy
about the appointment of the second minister, and this
led to the erection of a partition wall between the nave
and the choir, ⁷ and to the formation of separate con-
gregations - the nave and choir coming to be known as
the West Church and the East Church respectively. A
number of alterations were made to the structure in the
course of the 18th century, some of which are noted at
the appropriate place in the description (pp. 132 ff.),
while at the beginning of the 19th century both East
and West Churches underwent extensive modifications
which further altered the character of the building. In
1803 the internal arrangements of the East Church were
altered under the direction of James Miller, a local
architect, while in 1818 the West Church was restored by
James Gillespie Graham. Graham removed the old S.
porch of the nave together with Bowye's Aisle and the
greater part of St. Mary's Aisle. He also blocked up the
W. doorway and covered the timber roof of the nave with
an expensive but unconvincing plaster vault. In 1869,
James Collie, architect, Bridge of Allan, modified the
internal arrangements of the East Church, lowered the
aisle roofs and converted the triforium openings on
either side into clearstoreys. Towards the end of the 19th
century local antiquarians began to take an informed
interest in the structure, and alterations were undertaken
with the object of restoring the fabric to the condition in
which it had stood in the middle of the 16th century and
of fulfilling in some measure the original intentions of
the builders with regard to the crossing. In 1911-4, the
West Church was restored by Dr. Thomas Ross, who
removed Gillespie Graham's plaster vault to expose the
fine open timber roof, and repaired the nave arcades

1 Stirling Charters, No. XXIII.
2 Of the numerous articles in T.S.N.H.A.S. that refer to
the church, the most valuable are those of Ronald (vol. of
1889-90, 1-61), Cook (1898-9, 152 ff.) Ross (1913-4, 115 ff),
and Miller (1937-8, 9 ff). Free use has been made of these
articles here.
3 H.M. Register House, Stirling Protocol Book, 345. The
north aisle of St. Mary is mentioned in 1474, however (op. cit.,
121), and this suggests either that the chapel was rebuilt in
1484, or, more probably, that the aisle mentioned in the earlier
document is the N. aisle of the nave rather than an extruded
chapel. In Scottish usage the word "aisle" describes both a main
lateral division of a church and also any projecting wing.
4 Stirling Charters, No. XXXVII.
5 Stirling Council Records, i, 38.
6 Easson, Religious Houses, 186.
7 Stirling Council Records, i, 224.

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