The College of St. Salvator was founded and endowed by Bishop Kennedy,
in 1456, for a provost and prebendaries. This bishop was distinguished
for his liberality to the Church. He also founded and endowed a
Franciscan Monastery in St. Andrews, which has now entirely disappeared.
The Church of St. Salvator is the only portion of the college buildings
which still survives. It is now attached to the united colleges of St.
Leonard’s and St. Salvator, which form the existing University of
[Illustration: FIG. 1121.--Collegiate Church of St. Salvator. Plan.]
St. Andrews, and the other buildings of which are modern. The church
bears the marks of the period when it was erected, the latter half of
the fifteenth century. It consists (Fig. 1121) of a single oblong
chamber about 107 feet long and 28 feet wide internally, with a
three-sided apse at the east end. There are now no windows in the north
and west walls, but the south wall is divided by buttresses into seven
bays, with a large pointed window in each, which, together with the
three windows of the eastern apse, sufficiently light the church. The
central window of the apse is larger than the others. The tracery in the
windows is modern. The buttresses between the bays are bold and
effective (Fig. 1122), having a broad moulded base and being enriched
with canopied niches for statues on their face. The canopies on the
buttresses next the apse are placed
[Illustration: FIG. 1122.--Collegiate Church of St. Salvator. View from
South-East.]
facing one another on the angle of the buttress instead of on the face,
an arrangement not easily explained. The buttresses are now finished on
top with gabled pinnacles, but these are a modern restoration. The
original pinnacles were, doubtless, of the late and rather stunted
character usual at the period, of which one specimen survives, at the
north-east
[Illustration: FIG. 1123.--Collegiate Church of St. Salvator. South-West
Porch.]
angle of St. Salvator’s, where, however, it is little seen. Between two
of the buttresses, near the south-west corner, a porch is introduced
under the
[Illustration: FIG. 1124.--Collegiate Church of St. Salvator. View from
South-West.]
window (Fig. 1123), the buttresses being slightly extended beyond the
others to receive it. The porch is roofed with groined vaulting, and has
a stone bench on each side, and a canopied niche on each side of the
wide entrance arch. A shield at the apex bore the arms and mitre of
Bishop Kennedy. The doorway within the porch has a three-sided head or
arch, and the north door opposite it has a similar top.
The tower at the south-west angle of the church is of the usual plain
unbuttressed form (Fig. 1124) common at the period in Scotland. On the
ground floor it contains the gateway to the college. Over the outer
archway are the arms of Bishop Kennedy in a cusped panel (Fig. 1125),
having a canopied niche on each side. Over this the tower rises to the
string course under the belfry story, with no features but small loops
in the wall. The belfry story has a lofty double window on each of its
four sides.
[Illustration: FIG. 1125.--Collegiate Church of St. Salvator.