The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St. Andrews (medieval)
Parish church
Markinch is a village in Fife, Scotland. The present church of St Drosan and St John the Baptist consists of a 12th-century W. tower and post-Reformation nave, the latter orientated towards a pulpit on the S interior wall. It is possible that the central part of the E wall is medieval, but its date has yet to be proven. The church was enlarged by extending the south side of the church in the 17th century, with additional work on the church undertaken during the 18th century. Then, in the early 19th century, the church was extended on the N side and a new spire erected on top of the W tower. Extensive reorganisation of the church, including the blocking of the W tower arch, was undertaken in the 1880s. The upper stage of the W tower has double openings on the four faces, each of these having attached nook shafts with cushion capitals and a single en-delit shaft with four-sided cushion capital. Three stringcourses around the exterior of the tower separate the tower into four sections. The lower two stringcourses have a decoration of carved lozenges, but the top stringcourse is plain. Other carved decoration is found on a series of stones with chip carved saltires, three reused on the S exterior nave wall and one, now loose, found built into the N side of the church. This loose stone is definitely a voussoir and is presently kept inside the W tower. On the E face of the W tower arch is carved a simple cross with flared arms on one of the upper voussoirs, the date of the carving uncertain. North of the church, built into a separate building, is a worn medieval capital which is not of Romanesque type.
Ruined church
The ruined church of St Helen has a two-celled ground plan, with a rectangular chancel narrower than the nave. At one time both the chancel and nave were barrel vaulted. The south nave wall has been thickened on the interior side at some later date, which raises the question as to whether a vault in the nave, at least, was part of the building as first built. Muir, in 1848, wrote that in the nave there were 'indications of a north-west doorway', and that the decoration of the east window consisted of 'a hollow chevron carried round the head and down the sides close to the edges'. He also stated that the chancel arch 'apparently has been of two chevroned orders', that the central capitals were 'double-escalloped', and that the imposts were of 'trigonal form', carved with a double row of chip-carved saltires. The moulding of the jambs of the chancel arch consisted of a larger central half roll, flanked on either side by two smaller rolls. The west wall of the nave has been rebuilt and incorporates several stones carved with chevron. After the Reformation, control of Aldcambus came into the hands of Alexander, Lord Home. By 1556, the church appears to have been in a perilous condition. Sometime after the Reformation the parish of Aldcambus was annexed to that of Cockburnspath and the parish moved to the church there. The uniting of the two parishes was undertaken by the Lords Commissioners of Teinds before 20th May 1610. By 1750, and probably before, the church was in ruin. In 1847, much of the decorated areas of the church remained and were drawn by James Drummond, but large areas were soon afterwards destroyed by someone searching for stone to use for mending other structures. At that time, the land in and around the church had risen considerably and it was not until the early 20thc that the excavations were made to discover various ground-floor level features. Since then, the overgrowth has once again covered most of the surviving carved stones. Amongst the various stones recorded are a number of early coped graves, which are now no longer visible.
Ruined parish church
A blocked doorway with tympanum in the N wall, the remains of a stringcourse on the original nave exterior and a section of base stones are the only carved features that survive from the 12th or early-13th century church. A north extension was built off the N side of the nave in the 17th century, but in 1793 a newly constructed church, on a new site, was opened. The old church was abandoned and quickly turned into burial enclosures. As the ruins deteriorated, the W tower became dangerous, so in 1866 work was begun to strengthen it. During the operations, the tower collapsed. Some drawings made before this show the structure as it formerly existed, including the exterior of the doorway on the S side of the nave.
Ruined church
The present parish church (St Mungo’s) dates from 1771 and is built on a new site near the old church. The surviving ruins of the earlier church seem to date from the 17thc. and early 18thc. In 1648, the church minutes record that the church was in need of significant repairs and in a memorandum of 1743, Sir John Clerk states that he had in 1733 built an aisle in the church, as the church had become too small. He also states that he had built the steeple of the church, which is presumed to refer to the surviving west tower. After 1771, the site of the old church was gradually sold off for burial. The only known evidence for a Romanesque church on this site is a multi-scallop capital re-used at ground level on the W nave wall (E ext. of the W tower). The plan of the Romanesque church, itself, is unknown.
Ruined church
A report in 1627 describes the church as owned by the laird of Ormiston. In 1642, another report suggested that the parish be united with that at Pencaitland. Although the old church appears to have still been in use in 1649, the church was described as ruinous in 1695, and it was decided that a new church should be built at some convenient place in the parish. By November 1696, the new church was complete enough to have the first sermon preached within it. The main part of the old church appears to have been demolished in 1730. Thereafter, the old church served as a burial enclosure. In the 19thc, a roof was built over the E end, but was subsequently removed. It now lies open to the elements.
Ruined church
The ruins of the church are situated to the E of the town, in the area called the Nungait. Only the nave now survives, but originally the church consisted of a rectangular two-chambered structure, excavations revealing that there was a squared chancel east of the nave. Surviving evidence shows that the nave was vaulted, but it is thought that the vault was added, along with the exterior buttressing, in the 13th century. The side walls of the nave have large, single-splayed, rounded windows without decoration. However, the original chancel arch does survive, as does one voussoir re-used in the N interior wall.
Museum
St Vigeans Museum was opened in 1960. Formerly the carved stones were kept inside the parish church, but they were moved to the museum when it was established. Many of the stones date from the Pictish period, but a few are 12thc. All of these appear to have been found built into the later church walls.
Castle chapel
The chapel is historically described as being dedicated to St.Margaret, queen of Scotland, who died in 1093. The structure is built as a slightly irregular rectangle on plan; internally it consists of a barrel-vaulted nave and a semi-domed apsidal sanctuary which is slightly out of line with the nave. There is a decorated chancel arch between the two chambers. Sometime after 1573, the rock around three sides of the chapel was quarried away and these walls underpinned. After the Cromwellian seige, the chapel lost its identity and was put to secular use. By the 1840s, when the chapel was rediscovered, the building had been divided by another floor and was being used as a powder magazine. Subsequent to this, the chapel was restored and the later floor removed. On the north side of the eastern chancel, there is evidence of a doorway which went through the wall, but this was later blocked on the exterior of the chapel to form a locker/cupboard. It has been suggested that the chapel is all that remains of a larger building. The only decoration surviving is on the chancel arch.
Private house
The Stable House at Tyninghame is the S wing of the former stables of Tyninghame House. It, and the other stables, have been subsequently developed into a series of private houses, of which the S wing is the oldest part. Built into the fabric of the building are numerous, re-used medieval stones, many of which are 12th century. It has been assumed (most likely correctly) that the stones come from the nearby church of St Baldred, which is now a folly ruin in the grounds of Tyninghame House. Although the Earl of Haddington purchased the estate in 1628, the date for the construction of the Stable House appears to fall into the period 1761-1829. The church of St Baldred ceased to operate in 1761 when the old village was moved to a new location. In 1829, William Burn was employed to make make significant architectural changes to both Tyninghame House and its stables, work on the stables apparently undertaken in the early 1830s. As Burn's stable blocks were attached to what is now the Stable House, the Stable House must be older, as noted by Historic Environment Scotland in the Listed Buildings report. No medieval stones appear to have been used in the stable blocks designed by Burn. Tyninghame House and its policies, on which the Stable House is built, were sold in 1987, a year after the death of the 12th Earl of Haddington. The stables were made into houses in 1988, a date displayed above the north entrance of the Stable House.
Ruined former Augustinian cathedral priory church
The remains of St Rule's church stand a short distance SE of the ruins of St Andrew's Cathedral in St Andrew's, Fife in eastern Scotland. This church now consists of an unusually tall and slender tower, rising to 32.5 metres, with a single surviving small rectangular chamber to its east. The evidence of the continuity of the lower walling makes clear that there was at least one further chamber to the east of that. Another chamber was clearly added in a later phase to the west of the tower, which may have replaced a smaller predecessor. The church has relatively thin walls in relation to its height, and they are built of notably fine masonry composed of large squared blocks of grey ashlar, rising from a narrow chamfered plinth course. A corbel table running along the north and south sides of the wall head of the eastern chamber continues unbroken, and at the same level, around the north, west and south walls of the tower, showing that the tower was initially exposed at that level on those three sides, and there is a similar corbel table running around the entire wall head of the tower, above which is a second, later corbel table.
The north and south flanks of the eastern chamber are each pierced by two small double-splayed arched windows. The outer faces of the window arches are cut into single block lintels, while the inner sides are cut through the coursed masonry, albeit with rather curiously devised voussoirs around the perimeter of the arch head. At the belfry stage of the tower, and resting on a string course, are paired windows to each face, the outer jambs of which are stepped as if for nook shafts, though there is no evidence that these were ever supplied, and the rebates are probably in any case too small to have received them. The belfry arches are cut through block lintels and have shallow mouldings running around them.
The most architecturally complex features of the church are three tall arches of slightly horseshoe-shaped form, one through each of the east and west walls of the tower, and one through the east wall of the chamber to its east. The arch through the east wall of the tower is the simplest of the three, and is of two orders of basically rectangular section, the outer order of the arch being slightly offset from the jambs, which had nook shafts with bell-shaped capitals below square imposts. There are no signs of disturbance around this arch, and it is evidently part of the first building campaign. Conversely, the west tower arch is clearly an insertion, since it is not coursed in with the adjacent walls, and its upper voussoirs cut the corbel table. Its outer arch order is more complex than that of its eastern counterpart, having a quirked cavetto moulding and an edge roll; it is uncertain what form its inner order took, since it is obscured by the wall that now blocks the arch. This arch was evidently inserted to serve as the opening into an enlarged nave, though it has been plausibly suggested on the masonry evidence that there may initially have been a western vestibule of some form on the site of that nave, which must presumably have been accessed through a smaller arch.
The church evidently continued in some use after being superseded by the adjacent new cathedral in 1318. Prior William de Lothian (1340-54) re-roofed it, and a door inserted in the east tower arch is associated with the arms of Prior John Hepburn (1482-1522). In 1789 the surviving fabric was consolidated by the Barons of the Exchequer at a time that the crown in Scotland was starting to take responsibility for many of the medieval cathedrals and monastic buildings.
The main features of sculptural interest are the two tower arches, the E chamber arch, and the belfry windows.