Page:The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/392

sculptures appear to represent the Clanranald shield, having in the place of the first quarter a hand grasping a cross, in the second what appears

Fig. 1308.—Priory Church of St. Clement.

Figure, &c., in West Elevation.

to be a lion, in the third a galley, and in the fourth a castle. A tree, like a laurel, springs from the base and stretches to the top, with a bird on the highest branch.

The external appearance of St. Clement's is shown by Fig. 1299 and by the elevations (Figs. 1306 and 1307). The latter also show the tower and the peculiar carved heads and other figures, above alluded to, as probable insertions from an older structure. Fig. 1308 shows the small figure of a saint, inserted over the cabled string course on the west side of the tower, and the narrow cusped window above it. The north elevation (see Fig. 1307) and the sections (see Figs. 1300 and 1301) explain the mode in which the tower is built upon a higher level than the church.

ORONSAY PRIORY,^[1] Argyllshire.

Notwithstanding the very numerous small churches and chapels found in the Western Isles,^[2] there are comparatively few remains of monasteries. The original Celtic religious establishments were, doubtless, monastic in their form and structure, but of convents in the later sense, corresponding with those so common on the mainland, few traces are now to be seen. Next to the great Abbey of the Isles at Iona and the nunnery on the same island, the largest monastic establishment in the Western Isles of which the structures survive is the Priory of Oronsay.

This island lies about ten miles west from Jura, and can be most conveniently reached from Portaskaig, in Islay. The isle is about

1. We are indebted to Mr. William Galloway, architect, for the Plan of this priory and for most of the description of the buildings; while our thanks are due to Mr. J. Harvey Brown for the photographs from which the views are copied.
2. See Vol. I. p. 65.