There was a chapel at Corstorphine as early as the year 1128, which was granted to the new Abbey of Holyrood. This structure afterwards became the parish church, and continued to be so after the erection of the collegiate church, which still exists. Of this original chapel no trace now remains. It stood on the north side of the present building, on part of the ground now occupied by the existing north transept. This transept, which was built in the present century, is not the immediate successor of the old parish church, but takes the place of an aisle which was built in 1646, the erection of which caused the removal of what remained of the old parish church.
The existing church (Fig. 1172) consists of a chancel, a nave with north and south transepts situated at its west end, a western tower and spire, and a sacristy on the north side of the chancel. The whole building is small in size and of low proportions, the height of the tower and spire
 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/271}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
Fig. 1173.
The Collegiate Church of Corstorphine.
Stone Built into Wall of Field.
being only 50 feet, but although somewhat debased in style, it is very quaint and picturesque.
The structure suffered great alteration and damage from a restoration which took place about the beginning of this century. At that time the north transept, together with the seventeenth century aisle, above mentioned, and a part of the nave were taken down.[1] A new north transept was built, and a new additional nave was erected on the north side of the old nave. A doorway was knocked through the east wall of the chancel, which necessitated the shortening of the large east window above it by raising the sill. At the same time, the chancel was converted into a lumber chamber and porch, by the process of building up the chancel arch. As regards the sacristy, its floor has been dug out to a depth of about 7 feet, and it is now used as a heating chamber and coal cellar.
During this restoration a quantity of carved and moulded stones was removed from the church to Juniper Green, in the vicinity, where probably about fifty fragments, several containing the Forrester arms, were built into a wall on the road leading from the above village to Baberton House, but the wall has since been removed. Fig. 1173 is a sketch of one of these stones, bearing three hunting horns impaling a bend engrailed. At Hermiston House, also, several carved blocks
- ↑ Particulars regarding this church are to be found in The Collegiate Churches of Mid-Lothian, Bannatyne Club, edited by David Laing; and a paper by the same author in the Proceedings of The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Vol. XI. 1874-76, p. 353.
