The town of Dalkeith stands between the rivers North and South Esk,
about six miles south from Edinburgh. A church dedicated to St. Nicholas
existed here from an early period. It was raised into a collegiate
church in the fifteenth century, and since the Reformation has been the
church of the parish.
This church (Fig. 1127) consults of a nave of three bays with aisles,
and a western tower, north and south transepts, and an aisleless choir
of three bays, with an eastern apse. The western part of the church and
a portion of the choir extending as far as the south doorway (at which
point a wall has been erected across the building, as indicated by
dotted lines) are used as the Parish Church. About 1854 this church
underwent a thorough restoration. Much of the interest attached to it as
an ancient building was thus effaced, but the original plan has not been
greatly altered. The appearance of the building before the above date is
shown by Fig. 1128, which is reproduced from a drawing in the Hutton
Collection in the Advocates’ Library.[94] The steeple shown in this
view is said to have been built in 1762.[95] It resembles somewhat the
old steeple of Glasgow College,[96] and is much more likely to have been
built, as the latter was, in the seventeenth century than in the
eighteenth. The tower was probably repaired at the latter date, when, as
we are informed, the church itself was so treated. The walls of the
tower, where they have been left unrestored, and the staircase turret
adjoining are undoubtedly older than the eighteenth century.
The eastern portion of the choir (Fig. 1129) has stood for centuries in
a roofless and ruinous condition. It has originally been vaulted,
probably with a pointed barrel vault supporting a stone roof. As much
[Illustration: FIG. 1127.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. Plan.]
of the vault remains (Fig. 1130) as is self-supporting, and has on the
surface and in the angles of the apse moulded ribs at intervals
springing from corbels. The east end terminates in an apse of three
bays, in each of which, and in the bays of the south wall, are windows
of three lights, filled with plain looped tracery. The windows of the
apse have been partially built up (see Fig. 1129). The apse windows are
built at the same level as the other windows, thus leaving a great
height of plain wall above them. This height of wall over the windows
was
[Illustration: FIG. 1128.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. View from
South-East. (From a Drawing by Charles Sanderson in the Hutton
Collection in the Advocates’ Library.)]
rendered unavoidable by the barrel vault of the interior, which required
the arches of the windows to be kept below the springing of the main
vault, as may be observed at Ladykirk, Seton Church, and elsewhere. In
the churches of Linlithgow and Stirling the central window of the apse
is larger than the others, but in those cases the vaulting is different,
and allows greater height for the windows. The parapet above the walls
of the choir is plain and rests on a string course, which has been
carved with foliage. The doorway in the south side (Fig. 1131) is round
arched, and in the freedom of the treatment of its details very much
resembles what is found in the neighbouring Church of Rosslyn.
[Illustration: FIG. 1129.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. The
Eastern Apse.]
The buttresses (Fig. 1132), like those of Rosslyn, are massive, and
although they have five or six stages, they do not recede at these
stages till the wall head is nearly reached, where they are finished
with a gablet beneath which a large gargoyle is projected. The
buttresses were crowned with square pinnacles, finished with crockets
and finials, only two of which now remain, in a very ruinous state. They
have been carefully wrought on the inside, so as to adjust themselves to
the sloping flanks of the stone roof, the water from which was conveyed
through the buttresses by the projecting gargoyles to the ground. There
is a canopied niche on the face of all the buttresses, as well as those
on each side of the south doorway.
A monument in the choir (Fig. 1133) contains two recumbent figures, a
husband and wife side by side. The effigies (Fig. 1134) are not
recessed, as is frequently the case in an arched tomb in the wall, but
lie in the open church where shown on the ground Plan, and they appear
to be
[Illustration: FIG. 1130.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. Interior
of Apse.]
in their original position. From the heraldic coats on the monument (see
Fig. 1133) it is obvious that the knight was a Douglas, and that the
lady was of royal descent. On a lozenge at the head of the knight are
the
[Illustration: FIG. 1131.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. South
Doorway.]
arms of Douglas of Dalkeith, viz., two stars on a chief. And on a
similar lozenge at the head of the lady are the same arms impaled with
those of Scotland (Fig. 1135). The same arms are also repeated at the
sides of
[Illustration: FIG. 1132.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. North-East
Side of Apse.]
the monument (see Fig. 1133), with what appear like coronets above them,
from which Mr. James Drummond[97] gives it as his opinion that the
persons represented are James, 4th Lord of Dalkeith, who was created
Earl of Morton in 1457, and his wife Johan, third daughter of King James
I. The former died about 1498. Mr. Drummond supposes the lady survived
her husband, but the Lady Johanna must have died before the year
1490.[98] The facts on which that view is founded are the presence of
the royal and Douglas arms impaled, and “the male figure being
sculptured with an earl’s coronet, to which none of the previous lords
of Dalkeith had a right, although they were allied to royalty.”[99]
[Illustration: FIG. 1133.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. Monument
in Choir.]
The monument is in a very dilapidated condition, the base and lower half
of the pedestal being buried in earth and rubbish, the accumulation of
centuries. The arms on the pedestal (see Fig. 1133) are the same as
those already referred to as carved at the heads of the figures. They
are repeated on the opposite side of the pedestal, but in inverse order.
The canopied work along the top of the pedestal is similar to what is
seen surmounting a fragment of royal arms at Dunfermline (see Fig. 218),
which fragment may also have been part of a tomb.
The precise date of the founding of the Chapel of St. Nicholas does not
appear to be known, but since 1372, when Robert II. granted a licence to
James of Douglas to endow a chaplainry therein, frequent notices of it
appear.[100]
In 1390 Sir James Douglas, first Lord of Dalkeith (already referred to),
“bequeathed, besides a cup and a missal, a sum of money for the
reparation and roofing of the Chapel of St. Nicholas at Dalkeith;” and
by another
[Illustration: FIG. 1134.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith. Effigies
on Monument in Choir.]
deed two years later, “he assigns the residue of his goods to the fabric
and ornament of the said chapel,”[101] and for other purposes. Before
his death, in 1420, he raised the chapel to the rank of a Collegiate
Church, and is supposed to have finished the building, endowing it with
“stipends and manses for a provest and five prebendaries, as perpetual
chaplains.”[102] In 1467 St. Nicholas was disjoined from Lasswade, and
Dalkeith was made a separate parish, and in 1477 the church was enlarged
by the
[Illustration: FIG. 1135.--The Collegiate Church of Dalkeith.