Identifier: biggarhouseoffle1867hunt (find matches)
Title: Biggar and the House of Fleming: an account of the Biggar district, archaeological, historical, and biographical
Year: 1867 (1860s)
Authors: Hunter, William, F.S.A. (Scot.)
Subjects:
Publisher: Edinburgh
Contributing Library: National Library of Scotland
Digitizing Sponsor: National Library of Scotland

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istake. From statements in the founders testament, exe-cuted in 1547, and also in a charter of the Abbot and Chapterof Holyrood connected with this Church, and dated a few yearsafterwards, it is evident that the erection had been commencedand carried on, to some extent, by the founder, Malcolm LordFleming, but was evidently left unfinished at his death, in1547. His son and successor, James Lord Fleming, belongedto the same religious and political party as his father, and was,no doubt, influenced by the same views and feelings in respectto the new collegiate Church. He is understood to havecarried on the building, and to have left it in nearly the samestate in which it exists at present. The style of the architecture of the Church is Gothic, andthe form of it is that of a cross. It was, no doubt, intendedto be all composed of ashlar work. The choir, transepts, andtower have accordingly been built of dressed sandstone, broughtevidently from a quarry in the parish of Libberton, near Cam-
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BIGGAR KIRK. 169 wath ; but the nave is constructed of rubble work, the stonesemployed being the rough whin which abounds in theneighbourhood. This may be a portion of the old ParishChurch made to harmonize with the original plan, or it maybe a part of the building executed in this manner by JamesLord Fleming, with the view of lessening the expense. It issaid that the original plan embraced a spire, which would havebeen a great ornament to the town, and a fine feature in thelandscape ; but it was not built, and hence the unfinished stateof the Church is very commonly cited in the locality as anillustration of the aphorism, Many a thing is begun that isnever ended. like Biggar Kirk. The walls of the tower fromwhich the spire was to have sprung, have been formed into aparapet with embrasures and loopholes, as if it was intendedto be a place of defence,—a use to which the towers andspires of churches in Scotland were, in former times, not un-frequently put. After all, however, it may b

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