In several of its features, such as its greater regularity of form, its plinth course, and its more advanced style of architectural construction, its doorway and window composed of dressed stones, this building comes nearer than the other to the type of church with perpendicular walls, jointed and mortared masonry, and architectural features of construction. But it is still a church exhibiting the utterly simple character of construction that consists in the placing of stone upon stone without any binding material to keep them together. These two structures, thus presenting different gradations of the primitive type of construction, are associated with a third church which in itself presents two gradations of the secondary type. It consists of nave and chancel, the nave measuring 35 feet 2 inches and the chancel 18 feet 10 inches in length. Originally, however, the nave was a single-chambered church in the Celtic syle, with a decorated doorway and pilaster buttresses at the corners of the east and west ends, like the Leaba Molaga in the county of Cork, and the church of St. Mac Dara in Cruach Mhic Dara, off the coast of Connemara.1 Besides this peculiar feature which, as Dr. Petrie informs us, was not uncommon among the early Celtic churches of Ireland, all the apertures in the nave have the peculiarity of inclined instead of perpendicular jambs, a feature also characteristic of the earlier class of Celtic churches. Both nave and chancel are stone-roofed, the inside arched, the exterior slanting and covered with flat stones. But the east window of the chancel has parallel joints moulded on the exterior, and in its other details offers a marked contrast to the nave.2 This occurrence of the two

1 The only instance I know in Scotland of anything like these pilaster buttresses occurs in the case of the curious cell called St. Columba's Tomb at Iona, a plan of which is in the portfolio of plans of churches in Scotland, presented to the library of the Society by Sir Henry Dryden, Bart.

2 Kilmalkedar, by Arthur Hill, in the Journal of the Royal and Archæological Association of Ireland, vol. i. Third series, 1868-69., p. 560.

uncemented churches exhibiting different gradations of advancement, of which the ruder is greatly the more ruined, in such proximity to the single-chambered stone-roofed church constructed in the Celtic style with pilaster buttresses, which was subsequently changed into a chancelled church, appears to warrant the inference that the stone-roofed church with perpendicular walls and decorated doorway must be the successor and not the

Fig. 43.-Church of Kilvicocharmaig, Eilean
Mor. (From Muir's Characteristics.)

bours, and that the one of them which approaches most nearly to the style of the later church must be the successor and not the predecessor of the other.

We have no group of buildings in Scotland exhibiting in such a representative way the progression of type, but we have in the island of Eilean More Mhic O' Charmaig,

off the coast of Knapdale, a suggestion of the same thing. Here there is an ancient dry-built cell which is still known as the Chapel of St. Mac O'Charmaig. It is roughly rectangular on the ground-plan, measuring internally 11 feet 3 inches by 10 feet 10 inches, the thickness of the walls being about 4 feet. There can be no doubt from the character of what now remains of it

that it was roofed in a similar manner to the similarly drybuilt structures at Kilmalkedar. Another low oblong drybuilt structure of smaller size with traces of a curved roof goes by the name of St. Mac O' Charmaig's Tomb.1 The old church of Kilvicocharmaig, with which they are associated, is of very peculiar construction (Fig. 43). Its external plan is a simple oblong, 37 feet 5 inches in length and 20 feet in width. Internally it is divided into nave and chancel, the division being a gabled wall open in the centre by a semicircular arch, 12 feet high by 7 feet wide, composed of long thin slaty stones. This archway had been subsequently built up, leaving a small flatheaded doorway flanked by two square perforations or openings between the nave and chancel. The chancel is covered by a low waggon-vault, and over it is a chamber or croft lighted by a square window in the gable, and still covered with its stone roof. The roof of the western part of the church is gone. In the east end of the chancel are two small round-headed windows placed considerably apart. The chancel," says Mr. Muir, "evidently belongs to an early period, and in style mostly resembles Norman, though some alterations have somewhat modified the pristine character of its detail;" while of the dry-built cell he remarks that "the features of the building and the peculiarity of its place indicate considerable age, and there seems every reason for believing that it existed as a religious cell long before the neighbouring church of Kilvicocharmaig was erected." This conclusion appears to me to be sound for the following reasons-We have here in juxtaposition two very different varieties of structure, the one of a type which is primitive, the other of a type which is the most advanced that occurs within the area of the Western Isles. We cannot assume

1 Muir's Characteristics, p. 132; Captain White's Knapdale, p. 69. A similar association occurs at the church of St. Blane's in Bute, where there is a rudely built structure of a circular form in close proximity to the

that this advanced type was the predecessor of the other, and there is no evidence to warrant the conclusion that the rude uncemented cell did not precede the chancelled church in the order of time. I do not enter on the discussion of the question of whether the uncemented structures in these two groups at Kilmalkedar and Kilvicocharmaig are, or are not, late examples of their types which may have survived to the period when the chancelled type of church was dominant, because I have no evidence sufficient to determine that point. It is enough for me to have shown that the type of which they are examples cannot be held to have succeeded the type of the churches with which they are associated, and if they are examples of an earlier type it is of no moment whether they may be early or late examples of that type.

To complete the survey of the different varieties of the primitive type of structure, which are either distinctively chancelled church. It is about 30 feet in diameter, its walls are 4 to 5 feet thick, constructed of large stones undressed and uncemented. Its remains are now only a few feet in height, but the circle is complete with the exception of one side of the doorway which is broken down. The most remarkable feature of the church is its chancel arch, which is a fine example of early Norman work, and Mr. Galloway has shown reasons for the conclusion that the lower portion of the chancel is in reality the remains of a pre-Norman church. There are notices in the Irish Annals of an early monastic settlement here. St. Blane, who was contemporary with St. Columba, is referred to in the Martyrology of Aengus as "Blann the mild of Cenn-garad," and the gloss says: "i.e. Bishop of Cenn-garad: i.e. Dunblane is his chief city, and he is of Cenn-garad in the Gall-Gaedela." Dr. Todd explains "Gall-Gaedela" as the name given to the Scottish islands by the ancient Irish.-(Martyrology of Christ Church, Dublin, lxviii.) Cenn-garad is Kingarth, and the Annals record the death of Daniel, bishop of Kingarth, in 660; of Jolan, bishop, in 689; of Ronain, abbot, in 737; of Macleinanach, abbot, in 776; and of Noe, abbot, in 790. Thus we have record of an important ecclesiastical establishment existing from the sixth to the end of the eighth century in the locality where we find the remains of this structure of an early type, and the reconstructed church of Norman masonry, which contains fragments of a fabric of pre-Norman style. (See notice of St. Blane's Church, Bute, by William Galloway, Architect, in Archæologia Scotica, vol. v., part 2.)

Christian or of ecclesiastical origin, I have still to notice a series of isolated examples, which neither occur in such asso

ciation as to warrant us in calling them monastic, nor in such circumstances as to suggest their necessary connection with

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