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Field Visit
Date 17 July 1926
Event ID 1099144
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1099144
Parish Church, St. Andrews.
This church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, dates from 1412 but has been almost entirely rebuilt, the last reconstruction dating from 1907-9. It was originally cruciform with an aisled choir and nave and a tower at the north-west angle. The tower, as well as the two western arches and some of the piers of the nave arcade, is incorporated in the new structure. The arch mouldings are rebated chamfers; the piers are cylindrical with simply moulded bell-shaped capitals and chamfered bases. The tower, which has a little wing to contain the staircase, is built of ashlar. It has one string-course, forming a sill-course to the windows of the bell chamber, on three sides of which are doublets with trefoiled heads, while the north window, as it lies beside the stair-wing, is smaller and is divided by only a single mullion. The other windows of the tower are small round-headed lights with a double hollow chamfer and check. The entrance is from the north aisle through a small round-headed doorway, hollow-chamfered. The stair ascends as far as the parapet where it terminates in a stone spire rising beside, but clear of, the main spire. Both spires have lucarnes and were obviously built about the same time as the spire of St. Salvator's Church, which dates from the 16th century. The parapet is 74 feet above ground and is borne on simple spaced corbels.
STALLS. - In the church are two oak stalls of the early 16th century.
MONUMENT. In the east wall of the south transept is the handsome monument of white and black marble [SC 1108102] to Archbishop James Sharp. It was carved in Holland. On the pedestal is a representation of the murder of the Archbishop on Magus Muir on 3rd May 1679. Above is a sarcophagus set between Corinthian columns and bearing a Latin inscription [translated] as follows: ‘To the Glory of God. This lofty tomb covers the unspeakably precious dust of the holiest of bishops, the sagest of state councillors, the most saintly of martyrs, for here lies all that remains beneath the sun of the Most Reverend Father in Christ, James Sharp, Doctor of Divinity, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Primate of all Scotland, etc., whom the University regarded, acknowledged and continually marvelled at as a professor of theology and philosophy, the Church as priest, teacher, and leader, Scotland as its Prime Minister, ecclesiastical and lay, Britain as the advocate of the restoration of His Most Gracious Majesty, Charles the Second, and of the monarchy, the world of Christianity as the man who reestablished the order of Episcopacy in Scotland, good and faithful subjects as a model of piety, an angel of peace, an oracle of wisdom and a picture of dignity, enemies of God, the King, and the people as the bitterest foe of irreligion, treason and schism, and whom despite his character and eminence nine sworn assassins, inspired by fanatical rage, did with pistols, swords and daggers most foully massacre close to his metropolitan seat, under the noonday sun, with his beloved eldest daughter and his personal attendants bleeding, weeping and protesting, on May 3rd, 1679, in the sixty-first year of his age, piercing him with countless wounds when he had fallen on his knees to pray even for his murderers."
On the sarcophagus is a marble figure of the Archbishop kneeling, while from a white marble cloud an angel holds out a martyr's crown. Behind the head of the Archbishop are the words PRO MITRA painted in gold, this being the origin of the crest now used by the family, a gold celestial crown, and the motto, PRO MITRA CORONAM. On a cartouche on the frieze, below a mitre and backed by crossed crooks, are the Archbishop's arms: A fess between two cross-crosslets fitchy in chief and a mullet in base, impaled with a saltire for the See. In the pediment is a panel in low relief representing the Archbishop supporting a church.
CONSECRATION CROSS. On the west side of the tower is the upper half of a consecration cross 18 ½ inches in diameter.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 17 July 1926.
