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Crichton Parish Church

Collegiate Church (15th Century)

Site Name Crichton Parish Church

Classification Collegiate Church (15th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Crichton Kirk; Collegiate Church Of Ss. Mary And Kentigern; Crichton Collegiate Church

Canmore ID 53593

Site Number NT36SE 6

NGR NT 38082 61614

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/53593

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Midlothian
  • Parish Crichton
  • Former Region Lothian
  • Former District Midlothian
  • Former County Midlothian

Archaeology Notes

NT36SE 6.00 38082 61614

(NT 3809 6160) Crichton Kirk (NAT)

Formerly Crichton Collegiate Church AD 1449 (NR)

OS 6" map (1966).

NT36SE 6.01 NT 38083 61580 Churchyard

The Object Name Book of the Ordnance Survey describes the church as 'A cruciform stone edifice in an antique style of architecture and dating prior to 1449 at which period it was made a "Collegiate Church" by Sir W Crichton, Lord Chancellor of Scotland it is still the parish work and contains 600 sitiings, but its audience seldom numbers over 100. The parishoners being mostly Free Church and other kinds of dissenters'.

Name Book 1852.

Crichton Collegiate Church was founded by William, Lord Crichton on the 26th December 1449, in the parish church. After the Reformation, the building was unusable (see NT36SE 4) but was re-created the parish church in 1641. It was thoroughly restored in 1898.

RCAHMS 1929, visited 1915; D E Easson 1957.

Crichton Kirk, as described, is in normal use.

Visited by OS (BS), 24 October 1975.

Architecture Notes

NMRS REFERENCE:

Plans:

Dick Peddie & MacKay, Edinburgh alts

Attic 2, Bin 13, Bag 2 Dick Peddie, McKay & Jamieson 1951

NMRS Printroom

W Schomberg Scott Photograph Collection Acc no 1997/39

the tower - 3 prints

EXTERNAL REFERENCE:

National Library MSS of General Hutton vol 1 no. 72 - plan of church 1817

(Undated) information in NMRS.

Activities

Field Visit (3 June 1915)

Parish Church, Crichton.

This church (Fig. 67 [SC1233521]) is 3 miles east of Gorebridge and stands on a high and wooded bank sloping down to and overhanging the river Tyne, which flows by on the west. The present building is the ancient collegiate church, which, on the 17th November 1641, was decreed by Act of Parliament to be the church of the parish. In 1898 it was given a thorough restoration.

The church was laid out on a cruciform plan, comprising a choir, north and south transepts, and nave, but the last named division does not appear to have been completed.

Externally the building is plain, decoration being confined to the eastern limb. At ground level around the whole structure runs a heavy basement-course with a late bell-shaped upper member, and at eaves-level is a cavetto cornice. The absence of hood-mouldings is noticeable, but this omission is not uncommon in churches of this type.

The east wall of the choir contains a large pointed window with jamb mouldings consisting of a series of hollows alternating with rolls, filleted and plain. These return in one sweep around the archwork, unbroken by capitals at the springing level. The tracery is modern. At either side of the gable a buttress rises in four stages from the return of the basement-course to a decorated cope, which has been surmounted by a crocketed finial; the gable is skewed. The south wall is divided into three bays by buttresses, which are carried up higher than those on the gable. The cavetto cornice is enriched by stiff conventional floral ornament alternating with grotesques. For two courses below this the wall overhangs and is borne on a similar cornice with the same enrichment. The centre bay is pierced by a semicircular headed doorway, the greater portion of which has been renewed. The jamb mouldings of rolls, filleted and plain, and hollows, which are carried round the head, terminate in bellshaped bases. In each of the other bays is apointed window similar in detail to that in the east wall, but on a much smaller scale; thetracery has been restored.

The north wall is similar in all respects, except that the intermediate buttresses have been omitted where a sacristy once stood on the site of the modern vestry that projects northwards from the wall. Above its present roof can be seen the raggle of an older roof. The lower cavetto-moulding immediately above this has been renewed, probably in the late 17th century, to judge by the exceedingly crude rendering of the grotesque heads substituted for those originally there.

The east and west walls of the transepts are blank, but each of the end walls contains a lofty pointed-arch window with jambs and arch head wrought in a series of splays. The line of the inner member is broken at the springing level by a little capital with a floral enrichment.

Of the nave the south wall was just begun, but the north wall has been built for 16 feet and contains a semi-octagonal tower projecting northwards, within which a staircase is contrived to give access to the interior of the tower.

The choir and transepts are now roofed less steeply than at first; the weather tables showing the original pitch are seen on the tower. The roof ridges of these portions are about the same level, but the nave roof was intended to be higher.

Immediately above the roof ridges the tower walls are reduced in thickness by an external set-off with weathered top. Above this they rise vertically to a parapet walk borne on moulded corbels, as in castellated work. Within the parapet rises the tower roof with coped gables to the east and west, the east gable being surmounted by a plain belfry. In each wall of the tower is a two-light window with splayed jambs, mullion, and lintel.

The nave opened into the crossing by an equilateral arch with cavetto and ogival mouldings springing from foliaceous capitals; the abaci follow the contour of the jambs. These have a central semi-shaft with a broad fillet between two semi-shafts slightly setback. The bases are bell-shaped. On the completion of the choir and transepts, the archway was filled in and a doorway inserted to enable these portions to be used for worship pending the completion of the nave. The doorway was originally similar to that in the south wall of the chancel, but, at a later period, the rolls on the jambs have been replaced by splays.

A carved panel has been built into the masonry above the doorway. Within a border enriched with floral ornament is a shield charged with an eagle's head erased on a chevron between three eagles' heads erased. Below the shield is an angel winged and holding a scroll. The panel appears to date from the late 16th century.*

The interior of the choir is plain. The chancel arch is identical with that between nave and crossing. The wall thins at the springing level and above the apex of the arch is pierced by a quatrefoiled opening. The ceiling, as in the other divisions of the building, is a high pointed barrel-vault of stone without ribs.

In the south wall, immediately east of the south doorway, is a fine triple sedile with three ogival heads (Fig. 65 [SC 1233940]), which are moulded with bead-and-hollow mouldings springing from clustered shafts with floriated capitals and bell-shaped bases. The projecting sill has been mutilated. In the north wall, east of the doorway which led to the sacristy, is an interesting but much restored Sacrament House (Fig. 64 [SC 1233941]).The head is ogival and cusped; it springs from little buttresses, with moulded set-offs, which are carved with representations of Gothic windows. The sill, also moulded, appears to be original. Several fragments of carved stone similar to the work on the Sacrament House have been inserted for preservation in the south wall of the nave.

The south transept contains at the south-eastern corner a piscina (Fig. 66 [SC 1233969]) in an unusually complete state. The basin is circular and has a slight outward projection, which is moulded. The head is ogival and trefoiled. The mouldings of the head are carried, unbroken, down the jamb.

The transepts open into the crossing by arches somewhat lower than those of the chancel and nave, but in detail similar to these. The pointed barrel-vault over the crossing is pierced by a circular opening to allow the bells to be lifted to their position.

The staircase within the projection on the north of the nave wall is circular for the first flight. Thereafter it is conducted laterally through the nave wall until it strikes the west wall of the tower, where it is again wheeled and rises to the storey above the vault of the crossing, in which is a fair-sized chamber with a two-light window in each wall. Above it, in the original roof, there may have been an attic. A doorway high up in the east gable gives access to the parapet.

The structure is in good preservation and in use for worship.

The bell is inaccessible.

CONSECRATION CROSS. In the wall below the Sacrament House is a rudely incised cross within a circle, which may be a consecration cross.

HISTORICAL NOTE. The ratification of the foundation of Crichton College by the Bishop of St. Andrews is dated 29 December 1449, but there is a reference to the College as also the parish church (ad Ecclesiam parochialem de Crechtoun seu Collegium) dated 16 May 1448. The founder was William, Lord Crichton, Chancellor of Scotland, and the collegiate establishment was to be for a provost, eight chaplains or prebendaries, and two boys or clerks. As it was an erection on the basis of the parish church, the provost was to have the whole revenues of the ancient rectory of Crichton, subject to the support of a perpetual vicar for parochial duties and of a prebendary of Crichton. The revenues of Lochorwart or Borthwick (cf. No. I) were attached to the College, supporting a perpetual vicar for the parish of Lochorwart, two prebendaries or presbyters in the College to be known as the first and second prebendaries of Middleton, a third to be known as the prebendary of Lochorwart, and the two boy clerks. A parish clerk of Crichton was to be appointed, who was to be sacrist of the College, having charge of the bell-ringing, the locking of the doors, the vestments, chalices, and other vessels. What remained of the teind and other revenues of Lochorwart was allotted to the upkeep of the building, the furnishing of the altar and choir, and other necessaries. The three remaining prebendaries were to be supported by revenues from buildings in Edinburgh and lands in Crichton barony, two being styled of ‘Hogstoun’ and ‘Furde’, but the third blank. Each prebendary was to have half an acre for manse and garden (Charters of Coll. Churches in Midlothian).

RCAHMS 1929, visited 3 June 1915.

*Cf. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., xliii (1908-9), p. 221. Sir James Balfour Paul, then Lyon King, there suggests that the arms are probably those of Agnes Nicholson, fourth wife of Sir Patrick Murray, whose father was last Provost of Crichton. She died 16th November 1637. But the panel seems earlier than 1637.

Aerial Photography (1971)

Aerial survey of Crichton Castle by John Dewar in 1971.

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