[Illustration: FIG. 897.--The Parish Church, Haddington. North Transept
and Tower.]
north end, the north wall being demolished. The corbels and wall ribs
(Fig. 897) show how each end was divided into two bays, and that the
whole was vaulted. Owing to the absence of aisles, the transept walls,
which have few windows, have a heavy aspect, especially externally,
where the blank wall is not much relieved by the buttresses employed.
This is seen in the view of the south transept (see Fig. 894).
The tower over the crossing (see Fig. 894) is one of the most effective
parts of the structure. It is about 30 feet square, and rises above the
church as a square-angled structure, without buttresses or breaks. It
has a lofty triple window in each face, each opening being crowned with
a semicircular arch, and divided in the centre by an ornamental transom.
On each side of the tower two niches, with carved canopies and corbels
(but now without statues), occupy the plain space between the windows
and the corners of the structure.
Originally the tower was crowned with a canopy or spire of open work,
similar to those which still exist at St. Giles’, Edinburgh, and King’s
College, Aberdeen, and also that which formerly crowned the tower of
Linlithgow Church. A slight corbelled break in the centre of each face
of the tower indicates that a rib sprang from the centre of each face,
as well as the angles of the tower, thus producing the effect of an
octagonal crown, as at St. Giles’. Large picturesque gargoyles still
break the line of the cornice on top.
The whole church seems to have been designed and constructed at the same
period--probably about the middle of the fifteenth century. The choir
and nave were almost identical in their general features as originally
executed; and the details of the piers, mouldings, bases, caps, &c., are
very similar in both divisions. The style of the carved foliage is also
similar in each, and bears the stamp of Scottish decorated work, but
rather late in the style.
As an indication that the building was completed about the middle of the
fifteenth century, there occur in the “Buke of Auld Register of
Haidinton”[174] many entries of gifts of chalices and other furnishings
made to the various altars in the church, extending from 1423 to 1463,
showing that “more than ordinary interest had been taken in the ‘Paroche
Kirk.’”