The ancient town of Maybole, which is situated on the side of a hill
about nine miles south from Ayr, was formerly the capital of Carrick,
and contained the castle of the Earl of Cassillis[131] and the town
houses of the lairds of the district. Being within two miles of
Crosraguel Abbey and having a collegiate establishment within the town,
the ecclesiastical
[Illustration: FIG. 1272.--Maybole Collegiate Church. Plan.]
element would not be wanting in the society of the place. At the
Reformation the house of the provost was the scene of a celebrated
debate between John Knox and Quentin Kennedy, Abbot of Crosraguel, in
September 1561.
The college stands on gently sloping ground near the base of the hill on
which the town is situated, and is now enclosed within the streets.
In 1371 a chapel was founded in Maybole by Sir John Kennedy of Dunure,
and endowed for one clerk and three chaplains. This was probably the
earliest foundation of the kind established in Scotland, but it had many
successors as collegiate churches in the following century.
[Illustration: FIG. 1273.--Maybole Collegiate Church. View from
South-West.]
In Abercrummie’s description of Carrick,[132] written in the end of the
seventeenth century, the collegiate church is mentioned as being still
entire, “being now used as the burial-place of the Earl of Cassillis,
and other gentlemen who contributed to the putting of a roofe upon it,
when it was decayed.” It is further mentioned that the “Colledge
consisted of a rector and three prebends, whose stalls are all of them
yet extant, save the rector’s.”
The houses or “stalls” of the prebends are now all gone, and the church
is again roofless. The freestone has been taken away from many of the
buttresses, and the tracery of the windows is broken and most of the
windows built up.
The church as it now stands (Fig. 1272) consists of a simple oblong 52
feet long by 18 feet wide internally, but there are evidences of its
having been altered. There was a small sacristy on the north side, with
a good pointed doorway leading into the church.
[Illustration: FIG. 1274.--Maybole Collegiate Church. Tracery in
Windows.]
Both in the north and south walls (Fig. 1273) of the edifice there is a
very narrow pointed and cusped window, which does not correspond with
the other details of the building, and close to the narrow window in the
south wall there is a dressed corner, now built against, which seems to
indicate a complete change in the structure at this point. The east
window and the two windows adjoining it in the north and south sides
still retain part of their tracery (Fig. 1274), which is of a late
character. A recess with pointed arch-head for a tomb or an Easter
sepulchre in the north wall of the choir (Fig. 1275) contains mouldings
enriched with imitations of the dog-tooth, and the arches of the
south-west doorway (see Fig. 1273) have also similar dog-tooth
ornaments. The church having been founded in 1371, when the first
pointed period (to which the dog-tooth belongs) had long passed away,
there can be no doubt of the above ornaments being very late revivals,
even if the style of their execution did not make that apparent.
The south-west doorway is, however, a good late _adaptation_ or
imitation of a thirteenth century design, like other imitations of early
work which were common during the third pointed period. The doorway is
surmounted by a shield bearing the Kennedy arms.
The west end (see Fig. 1273) has a buttress in the centre, while in the
inside opposite it the recess of a built up window is observable (see
Plan), thus further indicating alteration. It seems probable that the
church was originally small, and the narrow windows, above referred to,
may possibly be remains of the original fabric. Then at a later date the
[Illustration: FIG. 1275.--Maybole Collegiate Church. Interior of East
End.]
structure was probably enlarged and partly rebuilt, when the enlarged
traceried windows, the recess in the choir, and the south-west
doorway--all of which are undoubtedly late--were introduced. This may
have occurred about A.D. 1500. The ruined sacristy still retains its
barrel vault (Fig. 1276).
Abercrummie further says--“On the north syde of the kirk is the buriall
place of the laird of Colaine within ane enclosure of new square-stone
lately built.” This enclosure remains, and its architecture corresponds
with the date mentioned, viz., seventeenth century. The entrance doorway
(see Fig. 1276) is elaborate, but considerably decayed, and over
[Illustration: FIG. 1276.--Maybole Collegiate Church. Doorway to Burial
Vault.]
it a large shield bears the Kennedy arms, impaled with another. The
church itself is now used as a burial ground by certain families of the
name of Kennedy.