| 884626 |
RECORDING |
FIELD VISIT |
The East Range of the Abbey: [...] |
July 2006 |
| 638586 |
RECORDING |
FIELD VISIT |
This farmstead incorporates the remains of the medieval guest house known as the Abbey Barn (see NO32SE 2.02). In the post-medieval period the guesthouse was used variously as a dovecot and for the site of a kiln, possibly for making lime (Lewis and Scott 2010). A series of pigeon holes have been set into the upper part of the W gable that clearly pre-dates the 19th century roofline, which cuts through the middle of them and must have been in use when the full gable-height was employed for the roof. A keyhole-shaped kiln, which the excavator argued was for lime because of a lime-rich spread over a layer of charcoal in an ash-pit (dislocated by later activity from the kiln itself) was excavated in 2006-7. It is noted that the kiln has the typical keyhole shape of a corn-drying kiln. Either way the structure must have stood in excess of a metre high, requiring steps up to the top of the kiln for loading. If it is a lime kiln it is unlikely there was a roof at that time, but a corn kiln could have functioned with a roof and an opening or loover to let the heat out over the kiln floor. In the course of the 18th century the building was converted into a barn and reroofed as part of an L-shaped range of buildings of random rubble construction that comprises an early Improvement period steading around two side of a yard. It is possibly during this period that the E entrance was expanded and an opening in the N wall made opposite, possibly for a winnowing hole. This barn is shown on the first edition 6-inch OS map (Fife, 1855, sheet 1) with addition of a horse-engine house on the N side of the barn towards its W end. In this configuration the E arm of the farmstead was apparently used for cattle with byre-stalls along the E wall. An outbuilding at a slightly different angle was situated to the S of this arm and the farmhouse (the core of the present farmhouse) to the SW. The outbuilding had a bothy at its S end, evidenced by a fireplace in the S gable that has since been filled in. The upper floor was lit by a window that reuses dressed stone from the abbey and a corbel from the chapter house. This building has gone through several modifications in the course of the 19th century. In 1849, on the evidence of the datestone on the W gable the grey stone cartshed with five arches that was added to the W end of the barn was raised to two storeys in random rubble. Later in the 19th century the courtyard was completed with the addition of the S range of the court and a pair of arches to provide ingress and egress to it from the W. The S range was also a byre and included feeding holes for each stall on the S wall. Further expansion of the farm occurred in the late-19th century with the addition of three buildings against the outside of the N, E and S ranges respectively, providing extra space for cattle on the E and S and a new barn on the N that housed a threshing machine in the late-20th century, if not before, and presumably replaced the horse-engine house on the back of the barn that was demolished. The whole yard was roofed, probably to make loose-boxes for the cattle in the late 19th century. A group of small square recesses that were built into the N wall of the N range just E of the barn itself, to house hens, probably dates to the 19th century. [...] |
March 2010 |
| 639473 |
RECORDING |
FIELD VISIT |
To the N of the cloisters only one abbey building still stands. This is the so-called Abbey Barn. This building measures 20m from WSW to ENE by 7.2m in breadth over brown, sandstone-rubble walls 0.9m in thickness that are thickened to 1.2m at the gable. The building is a quadrilateral, its W gable aligned with the cloisters but orientated obliquely to the N-S cloister ranges along its length for reasons that are now obscure, but probably indicates that it had to accommodate existing structures. It stands two storeys in height and has a steeply pitched roof. There is a scarcement along the inside of the walls above the ground-floor windows to support the first-floor. Any original window lights in the first floor have gone but might be expected to have had dormers. There is a skewputt on the NW corner of the building which has a heraldic shield of unknown provenance. On the S elevation an entrance with a deeply chamfered gothic arch, formed from two monolithic voussoirs that would be appropriate in a late-13th century, or early-14th century context, is located 6m from the W gable and another opening with similar chamfered quoins, lies some 5m further E. This is a double width entrance suitable for a barn, but its lintel is a modern timber and the upper quoins are insertions. The original opening has been widened after the Reformation, probably on the right-hand side since the stonework on the left looks undisturbed. The domestic scale entrance to the W is inappropriate in a barn. Indeed, in between the two entrances there is a narrow square-headed window, and such an opening has been observed as lighting the basement at Fetternear Palace (NJ71NW 7). This opening is shorter and broader than might be expected in a barn or a military context and also bears comparison with the larger ground-floor window between two entrances in the Prior’s lodging at St Andrews (NO51NE 2, SC1203740). A possible blocked window opening in the W gable appears to be visible in a photograph published by Lewis and Scott (2010, 68). These domestic scale features suggest a use as a guesthouse or abbot’s residence. The excavations by Scotia revealed an extensive area of cobbles to the W of the building, with a distinct camber suggesting a roadway. The foundation of a thick wall that ran up to the S end of the W gable on the same alignment may be the remains of a precinct wall enclosing the outer court of the monastery. The E wall that was revealed in the excavations appears to be abutted by the S wall, and the N wall also abuts the quoins of an earlier building to the E (Lewis and Scott 2010, 66). These features indicate an earlier building to the E on the same alignment to which this structure was added. The building was incorporated into a farmsteading in the post-medieval period (NO32SE 2.04). [...] |
March 2010 |
