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Field Visit
Date 19 July 1922
Event ID 1087986
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1087986
The church of St. Mary the Virgin stands on the left bank of the Tyne, 150 yards above the Nungate Bridge and outside the body of the burgh. It is cruciform on plan, comprising an aisled nave of five bays and an aisled choir of four bays with unaisled transepts; above the crossing rises a massive tower. From the north aisle of the choir there projects the pre-Reformation re-vestry partly built in the 17th century and since then used as a burial aisle. The nave has been altered and restored .and is still the parish church; the other divisions have become ruinous but are now conserved by H.M. Office of Works.
St. Mary's is one of the largest churches built in the great building period of the late 14th to the late 15th century, of which its ordinance and detail are typical. It has the blank east walls in transepts and choir aisles peculiar to Scotland and the bipartite bay design. The nave, now covered with a plaster
ceiling, was probably ceiled in timber, but all other parts with rib vaulting. The total length is 206 feet and the breadth 62 feet; the transepts, 30 feet broad, have a total length of 113 feet.
The various portions appear to have been built concurrently or in close sequence. The.stone employed in the eastern divisions is mainly a reddish sandstone, but there is a slight admixture of grey and this grey stone is almost entirely used in the upper part of the tower and in the western divisions.
[A full architectural description and historical note is included in RCAHMS 1924, 38-42]
RCAHMS 1924, visited 19 July 1922.
