Page:The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/614

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The lintelled door is on the south side, and there are two other doors on the north side, one of them being in the supposed chancel.

The belfry (Fig. 1577) appears to have been rebuilt in 1703. A row of projecting corbels, which probably supported a previous belfry, are left projecting under the new one.

Fig. 1576.—Church of St. Fiacre or Fittack, Nigg. Plan.

Immediately adjoining the ruin there is a stately seventeenth century house, formerly the manse, now occupied by an agricultural tenant and farm labourers.

The building is on the site of an early church, which was granted by William the Lion to his favourite Abbey of Arbroath, and it remained as one of its dependaries till the Reformation.



OLDHAMSTOCKS CHURCH, Berwickshire.


The main portion of this church, although its walls may in part be old, is not of much architectural merit, but the chancel (Fig. 1578) is not without interest as a specimen of late Gothic work. It is now used as a burial vault, and is completely ivy clad. It measures about 18 or 20 feet square, and is of modest height, being some 10 or 12 feet to the eaves.

The chief feature is the east window, with its rude tracery. The latter, which is of a different stone from the jambs and sills, is probably a restoration of late in the sixteenth century, while the chancel itself may be a little earlier. The building is vaulted with a barrel vault, and is covered on the exterior with overlapping stone slabs. It is impossible to say whether it contains any features of pre-Reformation times. The door seen on the south side of the choir is dated 1701.

Of the panels half concealed in the ivy, the one on the right contains the arms of Thomas Hepburn, incumbent of Oldhamstocks, and of his wife, Margaret Sinclair, who died in 1581. This Thomas Hepburn was