Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 47

The oldest accurate plan is a drawing attributed to a J Slezer and thought to have been produced during a visit in 1675. The second drawing is a large pen and ink drawing, which is a bird's-eye view from the south of the Castle and its surroundings, probably produced after 1689 and before 1707. The third very detailed drawing is dated 1746 and signed W. Adam's. This must be William Adam of Maryburgh in Fife, who held the appointment for a time as King's Master Mason. A further two plans belong to the Office of Works and are dated 1725 and 1735.

Sometimes bells were multiplied in a church tower without regard to the musical relation of their notes, such a collection of bells being rung together at haphazard, or the single bells used separately. Another method was to cast a large number of small bells upon which tunes could be played. After the Reformation period there was a great development on the Continent of these musical bells, the sets of which are known as carillons : the bells themselves were fixed " dead," as it\r\nis called, and struck by hammers operated by a system of wires attached to a row of keys or levers. A few of these are known in larger Scottish churches. As far as bells are concerned, Scotland has till recently been Continental in practice, and\r\nlittle, if at all, influenced by England. In Linlithgowshire there are twelve old churches, or churches representing old churches, in which ancient bells remain or\r\nin which they could have survived and six with modern bells.

In the parish burial ground of Peebles, the tombstones are very numerous, the older among them presenting several symbolic renderings that are of considerable beauty\r\nand importance. Most of them, however, are of the type common to Lowland churchyards. One eighteenth century example has a skull and cross-bones surmounted by an hourglass, the legends Memento Mori and Fugit Hora. Another includes a cherub head, and two serpents twining round a pole surmounted by a dove. The quality of design in the nineteenth-century examples is not as well executed. Numerous table tombs are also described. Many of similar style are present at Stobo and Lyne. At West Linton the lower portion of an ancient grave-cover, whose ornamentation\r\nincludes a nail-head border and a pair of shears survives. A stone at West Linton depicts a set of miner's tools. A grave slab at Newlands commemorating an ecclesiastic has only a single incised chalice.

During landscaping, besides certain interesting tombstones of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, three mediaeval slabs were uncovered, as well as the upper middle\r\nportion of a Celtic Cross comprising the shaft with part of the original head. Such crosses are uncommon in the south-west of Scotland.

The survey includes islands, partly or wholly natural, when an artificial causeway proved that they had at some time been adapted for habitation. Many of the islands, or crannogs are small in size with a tendency to sink below the surface, and all employ wood foundations to a lesser or greater degree. All the known examples across the Highlands are described.

Fordell House is of fifteenth century date and follows the design of the small " keep," both in arrangement of parts and in details of workmanship. Houses of this type and date only rarely survive in Scotland. Detailed plans and elevations are included.

The document is a Privilegium or Charter of Confirmation of its privileges granted in the year 1219 by Pope Honorius III to the Cistercian Abbey of Kinloss, in Morayshire. A large part of the charter recites the privileges usually accorded to foundations of the Cistercian order. A transcript of the charter in Latin is included.

The investigation of a group of five 'Norse' burial mounds is reported. A roughly built cist in the largest of the mounds contained nothing but earth, while the second largest mound contained cremated human bone within a steatite urn laid on a bed of charcoal. An examination of two of the smaller mounds disclosed neither cist nor urn, only ashes, fragments of bones, and some bits of round charred wood.

The stone used to build the tower differs from that used for the cathedral and has survived in better condition. It is concluded, on the basis of microscopic analysis that the stone used in the building of St Regulus Tower was local and not from Northumberland as has been argued elsewhere.

The armlet was discovered some years ago in the small isle of Oxna, adjacent to the Burra Isles, on the west side of the southern promontory of the Shetland mainland. The armlet of solid gold, is composed of four strands of the metal, finely polished, and interpleated into a continuous circular chain, broadest at the back opposite where the ends meet, and gradually diminishing in girth towards the points, which are joined together by a flattened and elongated lozenge-shaped formation which welds\r\nthem together and makes the circle complete. Comparisons can be drawn with items from Skaill although these are in silver.

A complete recumbent slab with a cross upon it was discovered at the cathedral. It shows no trace of decoration, but there is a semicircular cusp in each of the four angles. For the size of the cross the limbs are very broad. There is no ornamentation of any kind either on the reverse or sides. One corner had been broken off, but is now attached again by copper dowels. The slab had apparently been utilised by the builders of the chancel of the church in the thirteenth century. The lower part of a cross-slab close to the Whyte Melville tomb had been utilised by the builders of the wall in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The shaft of the cross is plain on the obverse and reverse save for the narrow border lines, but on both there is a rich panel on either side of the shaft. A fragment found in the enclosing wall of the infant school had been part of a Celtic cross slab, having sculptured panels both on the obverse and reverse, but on neither is a complete panel left. One has had an effective angular fret pattern, the other an interlaced pattern, which is much wasted.

Two font basins were found at Cruden. One was a particularly good example of the simple cylindrical type of basin common in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, well cut and of delicate proportions. The second is very like some old fonts of the extremely rude early type and has been modified in recent times. A medieval bell in a belfry at Cruden is inscribed but its meaning cannot be deciphered. A fragment of a sacrament house has a carving of probable late fifteenth or early sixteenth date. A carved stone in the churchyard has the inscription "fear God". The remains of the church of St Fergus are described, in particular the arched gateway, a re-used font fragment and a small carved cross.