60 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF ABERDEEN AND DISTRICT 
overthrown in a great storm of wind (February 7, 1633). George 
Thomson, the master-mason, used freestone ; but his lantern and upper 
‘imperial’ crown are frankly provincial-Scottish, Caroline Renaissance, 
in place of the original Gothic spirelet over the junction of the four great 
ribs. 
The general style of the College Chapel is Late-Scottish-Gothic, a 
style to be seen most perfectly in the Lothians. The east end shows the 
Scottish liking for apses of three or five sides. The nave was separated 
from the choir and sanctuary by a rood loft and screen, which divided 
the chapel into two nearly equal parts ; but about 1870 the loft was moved 
westwards, reducing the nave to an ante-chapel. The width of the chapel 
and of the nave of St. Machar’s is the same (29 ft.) ; the chapel bays are — 
20 ft. long, as compared with 17 ft. bays at St. Machar’s. This large 
dimension gave scope for the series of great windows on the north side. 
It is remarkable that the style of these windows—at least of the tracery— 
should approximate to the ‘ Decorated’ that England had given up a 
century and a half earlier. ‘The stone carving in the chapel too is very 
much in the‘ Decorated’ manner. While the windows are‘ curvilinear’ 
and ‘ flowing ’ in character, the proportion of the cusped trefoil heads of 
the lights is peculiar ; and the pointed window arches are really four- 
centred, although instead of being ‘ depressed ’ arches they are the reverse. 
The partiality shown for unusually large centre mullions which run up 
to the head of the arch is not easy of satisfactory explanation. The 
buttress system might be supposed to indicate stone cross-vaulting ; but 
at that time vaults built in Scotland were usually pointed barrel vaults, 
upon the surface of which purely ornamental stone ribs appeared. These 
stone barrel vaults were barbarous and ponderous, and very detrimental to 
good lighting. Bishop Elphinstone, at his College Chapel (as at the 
choir of St. Nicholas’) adopted a ceiling that in effect is a very low 
wooden barrel vault. On the north wall outside there may be seen 
parts of five of the twelve Consecration Crosses. Inside the chapel two 
of the pre-Reformation black-marble altar slabs have been preserved, 
owing to their having been used as grave slabs for university officials 
who died respectively in 1593 and 1601. 
The twin freestone spires of St. Machar’s were built on Bishop Lichtoun’s 
granite towers in Bishop Dunbar’s time (1518-32) ; and probably the 
battlements were altered and reduced in height at the same time. In the 
south transept are two elaborate wall-tombs, arched and canopied. 
Bishop Dunbar’s, the earlier, may have been built before his death (1532). 
The bridge over the Dee at Ruthrieston, a ribbed structure of seven 
nearly semicircular arches, was built (c. 1520-27) for Bishop Dunbar and 
under his clerical Master of the Works, ‘ Maister Alexander Galloway, 
Persoun of Kynkell,’ by Thomas Franche, master-mason, the son of a 
master-mason, John Franche, who died at Linlithgow in 1489. Thomas 
Franche was engaged on the Bridge of Dee and the rebuilding of the south 
transept of St. Machar’s, and probably jon the other work built for the 
Bishop, from about 1520 until 1530—possibly later. He is found at 
Linlithgow as the King’s master-mason in 1535, and in the same capacity 
at Falkland in 1537-38. 
