The Pre- Reformation Churches of Beriuickshire. 127 



only features worthy of note. The latter rise in two stages with 

 sloping set-offs, and each has been ornamented with a niche on 

 the face of the upper stage. Of these, the brackets of both and 

 the canopy of one are still entire. The arms of Archbishop 

 Blackadder are carved on a stone in the south-west buttress. 

 His initials v.h* have also been cut on the stone, but the r. 

 is now so much wasted as to be quite illegible. (Fig. H.) 

 Another heraldic stone, with its bearings almost obliterated, 

 may be seen in the wall a few yards further to the west. (Fig. 

 12.) 



Fig. 12. 



There are several old tombstones in the churchyard, all of 

 them of a very plain and uninteresting character. One of ITtli 

 century date has a rude cross incised upon it, a relic, probably, 

 of the temporary episcopal ascendancy under Charles II. : 

 another, evidently much older, has been ornamented with a 

 cross or sword in low relief, but, owing to the exfoliation of the 

 stone, the nature of the device is almost unrecognisable. 



No remains of any of the Chapels above mentioned now exist. 

 That at East Nisbet, now called Allanbank, stood on the south- 

 west bank of the river Whita Ider, about a mile above the village 

 of Allanton. The site is near a small field still known as the 

 "Chapel Haugh," noteworthy as having been the scene of a 

 Covenanters' conventicle and communion in the persecuting 

 times. The ruins were taken down about the beginning of the 



* As on the Blackadder Crypt of Glasgow Catliedral, where tlie Arch- 

 bishop's arms also appear.. 



