corner. The dimensions of the building were ascertained to be about 96
feet from east to west by about 30 feet 6 inches from north to south
over the walls. The angle buttresses shown at the east end are
conjectural, and are based on a tradition that the corners of the
existing church were copied from the form of the east end of the old
church.
Mr. Schultz states that an old burial list, of which the date is
uncertain, but which may be of the seventeenth or early eighteenth
century, alludes to certain graves which can still be recognised as so
many feet from the “queer pillar” (buttress), _i.e._, the buttress
opposite which the chancel arch is represented. Mr. Schultz assumes from
this that the choir or “queer” extended as far as this buttress; and the
fact that a splayed base was found all along the choir wall as far as
this point, and that no such splay existed farther west, gives a certain
sanction to the above view, as does also the circumstance that the nave
or western part of the building had no buttresses. It is frequently
found that the eastern end was treated in a different manner from the
west end. A foundation was found inside the building, at a distance of
about 6 feet from the east wall, and it is conjectured that this may
represent the seat of an altar. The windows, of which several stones
were found, appear to have had single mullions with simple pointed
arches.
Although only demolished in this century, there does not appear to be
any view of the old church known. It is described by Symson, in his
_Large Description of Galloway_, “as a considerable and large fabrick,
consisting of a spacious church and stately quire, where are the tombs
of the Lord Crichtons of Sanquhar, wrought in freestone, and before them
some Lords of the name of Ross.”[174]
The effigy of an ecclesiastic (Fig. 1373) was taken from Sanquhar to
Friars Carse when the old church was demolished, but it has recently
been brought back by Lord Bute.