380 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
clergy to adapt it to the wants of the rising town. In all the changes that it underwent
for above seven centuries, the original north door, with its beautifully recessed Norman
arches and grotesque decorations, always commanded the veneration of the innovators, and
remained as a precious relic of the past, until the tasteless improvers of the eighteenth
century demolished it without a cause, and probably for no better reason than to evade the
cost of its repair.
As the population of the town increased, and it advanced in wealth and importance,
altars and chapels were founded and endowed by its own citizens, or by some of the
eminent Scottiah ecclesiastics who latterly resided in Edinburgh; so that St Giles’s had
increased to a wealthy corporation, with numerous altarages and chaplainries, previous to
its erection into a collegiate church by the charter of James 111. in 1466. As usual with
all large churches, St Giles’s presented internally the form of a cross, with the central
tower placed at the junction of the nave and choir with the transepts. Externally, however,
this had almost entirely disappeared, owing to the numerous chapels and aisles added
at various dates, and it has only been restored by sacrificing some of the most interesting
and unique features of the ancient building. Previous to the alterations of 1462, notwithstanding
the general enlargement of the church by the addition of one or more rows of
chapels on either side of the nave, no portion of the central building appears to have been
elevated into a clerestory; and in the nave this addition forms one of the modern alterations
effected in 1829. Before that recent remodelling, the nave was only elevated a
few feet bigher than the aisles, and was finished in the same style in which the north
aisle still remains, with a neat but simple groising springing from the capitals of the
pillars, and decorated with sculptured bosses at the intersections. The south aisle of the
nave is evidently the work of a later date. The rich groining and form of its vaulting afford
an interesting subject of study for the architectural chronologist, when compared with the
simpler design of the north aisle. We may conclude, with little hesitation, from the style
of the former, that it was rebuilt in 1387, along with the five chapels to the south of it
described hereafter ; and, indeed, the construction of the light and beautiful shafts from
which their mutual vaultings spring, almost necessarily involved the demolition of the old
aisle. Over the vaulted roof of the centre aisle, in the space now occupied by the clerestory,
a rude attic was erected, which included several apartments, latterly used as the
residence of the bell-ringer Mitchell with his wife and family, who ascended to their
elevated abode by the antique turnpike thaE formerly rose into an octagonal pointed roof of
curious stonework, near the central tower. The arches of the tower still remain to show
the original height of the nave ; and a careful inspection of the choir proves, beyond all
doubt, that it underwent a similar alteration by the construction of a clerestory, at the
same time that it was lengthened, by the addition of the two eastmost arches, about the
middIe of the fifteenth century.’ In some of the larger Gothic churches, the architects
are fouud to have ingeniously aided the perspective of (‘ the long drawn aisles,” by dirninishing
the breadth of the arches aa they approach the east end of the choir, where the high
altar stood, thereby adding to its apparent extent. In St Giles’s Church, however, the
opposite is found to be the case. The two eastmost arches are wider and loftier than the
The choir was probably lengthened only to the extent of one arch ; but the removal of the e& wall would newsmuily
involve the rebuilding of the second.
