DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26747#0970
906
ARCHITEOTURE OF SCOTLAND.
Book VIII.
or have been so much admired, as the chapel at Roslyn, whicli
William St. Clair caused to he erected in the year 1446. For this
purpose lie did not employ liis countrymen, hut “ brought artificers
from other regions and forraigne kingdomes,” and employed them to
erect a building very unlike anytking else to be found in Great
Britain.
731. Cliapel at Roslyn. R. W. B. del.
From the knowledge we now have of styles, there can be little
doubt that his arcliitects came from tlie north of Spain. In fact, there
is no detail or ornament in the wliole building wkicli may not be 'traced
back to Burgos or Oviedo; though there is a certain clumsiness botli
in the carving and construction that betrays tlie workmansliip of per-
sons but little familiar with the task tliey were employed upon. The
cliapel is small, only 68 ft. by 35, internally. The central aisle is only
15 ft. wide, and has the southern peculiarity of a tunnel-vault witli only
transverse ribs sucli as those found at Fontifroide (woodcut ISo. 477),
and in almost all the old churclies of the south of France. At Roslyn,
between these, the ornaments, which were painted in the earlier ex-
amples, are carved in relief. The vault, as in the south, is a true roof,
the covering slabs being laid directly on the extrados or outside of the
vault, without tlie intervention of any wood, a circumstance to wkich
the chapel owes its preservation to tlie present day. Beyond the
upper chapel is a sub-chapel (woodcut No. 732), displaying tlie same
mode of vaulting in a simpler form, but equally foreign and unlike the
usual forrn of vaults in Scotland.
ARCHITEOTURE OF SCOTLAND.
Book VIII.
or have been so much admired, as the chapel at Roslyn, whicli
William St. Clair caused to he erected in the year 1446. For this
purpose lie did not employ liis countrymen, hut “ brought artificers
from other regions and forraigne kingdomes,” and employed them to
erect a building very unlike anytking else to be found in Great
Britain.
731. Cliapel at Roslyn. R. W. B. del.
From the knowledge we now have of styles, there can be little
doubt that his arcliitects came from tlie north of Spain. In fact, there
is no detail or ornament in the wliole building wkicli may not be 'traced
back to Burgos or Oviedo; though there is a certain clumsiness botli
in the carving and construction that betrays tlie workmansliip of per-
sons but little familiar with the task tliey were employed upon. The
cliapel is small, only 68 ft. by 35, internally. The central aisle is only
15 ft. wide, and has the southern peculiarity of a tunnel-vault witli only
transverse ribs sucli as those found at Fontifroide (woodcut ISo. 477),
and in almost all the old churclies of the south of France. At Roslyn,
between these, the ornaments, which were painted in the earlier ex-
amples, are carved in relief. The vault, as in the south, is a true roof,
the covering slabs being laid directly on the extrados or outside of the
vault, without tlie intervention of any wood, a circumstance to wkich
the chapel owes its preservation to tlie present day. Beyond the
upper chapel is a sub-chapel (woodcut No. 732), displaying tlie same
mode of vaulting in a simpler form, but equally foreign and unlike the
usual forrn of vaults in Scotland.