"1867. The Church has been fairly restored within, and has very neat open seats. The Nave is of five bays, each of pointed arches on octagonal pillars. On the North the two eastern have enriched foliage on the Capitals of Decorated character and clustered East respond. The South piers have toothed ornament in the Capitals. The windows of the Clerestory are Perpendicular, closely set, and very light; those of the aisles are Decorated of three lights-some square-headed. "The Chancel arch is a plain one, springing straight from the wall. The East arch on the South side of the Nave has been partly walled and contracted by the change of plan in planning [?] the Chancel arch in its present position. The full dimension of it can be traced in the wall East of the Chancel arch. In both aisles are piscina near the East end-that of the North has a bowl with pretty foliage. The pulpit is of carved wood on stone base. In the Chancel Arch is a Perpendicular rood screen. The Chancel has a five-light Perpendicular East windowthe others square-headed and Decorated. The Organ is now East of the North aisle. At the North-east of the Chancel is the original Vestry. "ST. MARY'S CHURCH, or the New Church, is a very handsome and spacious structure, consisting of a nave with collateral aisles, and a chancel with a spacious chapel on the South side. At the West end is a very handsome Early English tower finished with Perpendicular battlement and eight crocketed pinnacles. The Tower has three stages in the lowest on the West side is a rich and deeply-moulded doorway. In the second, of four orders of shafts having capitals of foliage, is a very long and narrow window ornamented with slender banded shafts. Above this is a plain tablet, and in the third stage a very rich and deeplymoulded window of two lights divided by a slender shaft. The body of the church is without battlement throughout, and is originally built of brick and stone. The South porch is very rich. The outer doorway is deeply moulded, and has the dog-toothed ornament. The mouldings rest on capitals which seem to have been intended to have had shafts. The dripstone of this doorway, and as well as of two niches on either side of it, is elegantly returned and foliated. "The Church within is extremely light and elegant. It exhibits a great variety in its windows. The Clerestory is Perpendicular. On the North side are some Early English plain lancet windows, and some Perpendicular. On the South side of the Nave they are of a very elegant early Decorated pattern. In the Chancel the East window is of very beautiful early Decorated and of large dimensions. Those on the North side of the Chancel are of late Early English, being of two lights, with a small circle between them, but not contained in the same frame, and thereby fairly showing them to be Early English. There is also one window of that description which cannot be called exactly Early English from it having cross mullions, nor can it well be called Decorated from its extreme simplicity and plainness. It may, however, be said more properly to belong to the latter style than the former. The chapel on the South of the Chancel has windows of the same description, and one of a The Nave is divided richer description. from its North aisle by massive circular Norman piers with square bases and supporting arches only just pointed, and adorned with all those mouldings so purely Norman, the chevron, the herring-bone, and the network. At the Eastern end there is half an arch abutting against the wall, which is much loftier and pointed. The Nave is divided from the south aisle by pillars and arches totally different from those just mentioned. The arches are four in number, pointed, and very lofty, and springing from circular piers, which are surrounded by eight slender shafts, elegantly banded about the middle, and with beautiful flowered and foliated capitals. This is a very fine remain, the others have been supplanted by a Perpendicular inserted window. "The arches which divide the Chancel from the South chapel appear to be of early Decorated. They are three in number, and spring from a central pier formed by slender shafts in clusters with fine foliated capitals. In the Chancel, on flat stones, are many vestiges of brasses, but they are all gone excepting one, which is in the Chancel, and represents the brass figure of a merchant with barrels at his feet. An inscription runs round, also on brass, and thus runs : "In gracia et misericordia Dei hic jacet Simon Seman quonda civis et vinitaris ac Aldermani Londin qui obiit xio die mens' Augusti anno domini millmo cccco tricesimo tercio Cujus anime et omnium fidelium defunctorum deus propicietur Amen AMEN.* "On a flat stone in the Chancel: "Hic jacet Ricardus Baivod quöda capells pochit isti' q obiit x die mēs Apl a dni mcccc septimo I ... "1867.-The battlement is finely panneled, and below it is a corbel table of Early English character, of which is the whole of the tower save the parapet. "The exterior is of inferior masonry, and has some stucco covering of ancient date. "At the two ends of the North aisle were originally two lancets; those at the East * Sir S. Glynne repeats the Amen in capitals as here printed. In the second legend the word pochit" is given as written by Sir Stephen. It is, of course, a mis-reading for a contracted form of parochialis." " The interior is handsome, but unrestored still, with its pews and West gallery, in which is a finger organ. "The Tower is large enough to hold ten bells, but has only four. "At the West end of the South aisle is a pedimental buttress, and a good geometrical window of three lights. "The Chancel has a good East window, Decorated, of five lights, and on the North are two-light windows-one Decorated-one without foliation. "The northern arcade has five arches transitional from Norman to Early English, barely pointed, having chevron ornament in the mouldings, also lozenge, etc. The piers are circular, with plain round capitals. The fifth arch is loftier, and looks as if it had opened into a Transept. "The Southern arcade is quite different, and decided Early English, with four fine pointed arches, lofty and well proportioned, upon circular columns surrounded by banded shafts. The Clerestory has Perpendicular windows of three lights closely set. "The South aisle of the Chancel is spacious, and was, till lately, used as a school. It has odd windows. One has a double two light window with no foliation, and interiorly included in a larger [. . . ]. The East window Perpendicular, and there are three plain pointed sedilia with window over them. There is a parclose screen between the Chancel and South Chapel, and the East end of the latter is raised for an Altar. There is at the South-East of the nave a low leper window of two lights, with late Decorated tracery, somewhat Flamboyant in character, with iron bars—an unusual feature. "On the north of the Chancel is the original Vestry. The original Altar stone is seen in the Sacrarium floor with five crosses. "The Altar has a marble slab mounted on ironwork. "The north Clerestory is almost wholly of brickwork. "There is also a bust brass much worn, and without inscription." The Cave at Airlie. BY DAVID MACRITCHIE. N or about the year 1794 an interesting discovery was made on a Forfarshire farm, The Barns of Airlie, situated near "The Bonnie Hoose o' Airlie," famed in Scottish song. The work of the ploughmen had been interrupted by a huge stone lying a little beneath the surface of the ground, and one of the men set himself to remove it by means of a crowbar. Scarcely, however, had he got the crowbar inserted at the edge of the stone when the imperative call for dinner obliged him to leave it. On his return the crowbar had mysteriously disappeared. A closer investigation showed him that its head was still visible an inch or two above ground, and on further examination this huge stone was found to be one of the roof-slabs of an underground building, into which the crowbar had slipped. Descending into this subterranean retreat, the farmer and his men found that it contained nothing more important than a quantity of charred wood, the remains of bones, several stone querns or hand-mills (of which some were broken), a brass or bronze pin, and "a piece of freestone with a nicely-scooped hollow in it, somewhat resembling a trough or mortar." This last article is described as "precisely similar" to other such specimens found in a souterrain at Migvie, Tarland, Aberdeenshire.* This Airlie souterrain, variously referred to as a cave, a weem (the Lowland Scotch pronunciation of the Gaelic uaim, "a cave"), an eirde- or earth-house, and a Pict's house, has been very carefully described by the late Mr. A. Jervise, from whose account the above statements have been gleaned. At the date when Mr. Jervise wrote (1864), the "Cave," as it is locally called, was in as good order as when it was discovered seventy years before, thanks to the wisdom of a former Earl of Airlie, who had a clause inserted in Described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. v., pp. 304-306. + Op. cit., pp. 352-355: with ground-plan and sectional view at Plate XXI., opposite p. 301. the lease of the farm by which the tenant is bound to protect the structure; and this arrangement is happily still in force. Consequently, the plans here reproduced* are as truly representative of the original structure. as those delineated by Mr. Jervise, and they have the advantage of being drawn on a much larger scale, and with fuller detail. One statement of Mr. Jervise's, however, may be specially referred to: "About 12 feet from the entrance," he says, "a smoke-hole was visible within these few years;" from which we may clearly infer that in 1864, as now, that orifice was choked up with earth. But its existence leaves no doubt that the recess G was a fireplace, as perhaps the recess F also was. The following are some measurements taken by the present writer: The innermost of the roof-slabs, which are seventeen in number, measures 49 inches across by 46 inches lengthwise, while that next the entrance is 64 inches across by 66 inches lengthwise (the actual length in each case being, of course, much greater, as the extremities of the slabs are buried in the earth). Of the wall-stones, two of the larger specimens, forming part of the base tier at the inner end of the cave, measure respectively 55 and 58 inches long, the former being 29 inches high. The height of the gallery varies from about 5 feet to 6 feet 3 inches, and the width averages a little over 7 feet on the floor, narrowing to 4 feet at the roof, due to that convergence of the walls which characterizes such " terizes such "cyclopean" buildings. uneven earthen floor shows a kind of rude paving in some places. The whole roof has a superincumbent layer of soil, cultivated with the rest of the field; but this covering is so shallow that it is quite easy to signal from the field above to the occupant of the cave below by tapping on a loose stone, and thereby eliciting answering knocks on the roof underground. (See E in ground-plan.) The The cave at Airlie has, of course, long been known to antiquaries as well as to the people of the district, and it may be mentioned that it was visited about thirty years ago by members of the British Association, under * Made in the present year by Mr. J. A. R. Macdonald, Blairgowrie. His whole paper is well worthy of perusal. Mr. Jervise's account of the finding of one of these vanished "weems" is amusing and interesting: The circumstances which led to the discovery of one of these weems is curious. Local story says, that the wife of a poor cottar could not for long understand why, whatever sort of fuel she burned, no ashes were left upon the hearth; and if a pin or any similar article was dropt at the fireside, it could not be recovered. Having "a bakin" of bannocks, or oatmeal cakes, on some occasion, one of the cakes accidentally slipped from off "the toaster," and passed from the poor woman's sight! This was more than she was prepared for; and, believing that the house was bewitched, she alarmed her neighbours, who collected in great numbers, and, as may be supposed, after many surmises and grave deliberation, they resolved to pull down the house! This was actually done: still the mystery remained unsolved, until one lad, more courageous and intelligent than the rest, looking attentively about the floor, observed a long narrow crevice at the hearth. Sounding the spot, and believing the |