Page:The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/344

honourably uphalding in the said ornaments as thai resceve the samyn thairto fra the said abbot and Convent." By the year 1520 the work appears to have proceeded so far that a service, by order of the Provost and Bailies, was held in the choir, but it does not appear to have been then quite finished, as in 1523 Robart Arnot, "Maister of the kirk wark," is ordered to make payment for timber for the queir.^[1] The choir (see Fig. 1247) consists of three bays with north and south aisles, and an eastern apse of five sides. The latter is applied like an oriel window to the east end of the church, somewhat in the same way as the apse of St. Michael's, Linlithgow. It is wider than the central division of the choir, and fits on awkwardly to it, causing the two side divisions of the apse to be lost to view when one looks from the west end (see Fig. 1246). The vaulting of the apse is managed in a peculiar manner, arches being introduced

Fig. 1248.—Stirling Parish Church. Plan of Chapel of St. Andrew.

on each side in order to bring the central space into a form as nearly a parallelogram as possible, and thus enable it to be covered with a pointed barrel vault, strengthened with small ribs.^[2] The mullions of the apse are treated somewhat like perpendicular work.

The side aisles are vaulted with stone, and the tracery is modern. The piers are of an ordinary late section (see Fig. 1244), and the details recall the later work of St. Giles', Edinburgh. The caps are of the character of many late Scottish buildings, such as St. Giles' and St. Michael's (choir), the abacus containing a number of straight members, while the bed moulding breaks round the mouldings of the piers. The small shreds

1. The Story of the Parish Church of Stirling, by Treasurer Ronald, p. 12.
2. See also Fig. 1259 in The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, Vol. V. p. 143.