NOTES ON GLASGOW CATHEDRAL

Abstract

The Medieval Treasury of Glasgow Cathedral Projecting northwards from the westernmost bay of the choir of Glasgow Cathedral, is a low building, roofed with modern flagstones, which, in the nineteenth century, served as a heating chamber and, more recently, has been adapted to form a Session Room and other offices. The original use of this building has never been satisfactorily decided and, from time to time, various assertions have been made. A lifetime ago, on 19 December, 1895, Archbishop Eyre read a paper before the Glasgow Archaeological Society, in which he argued, not very convincingly, that the building had been the Hall of the Vicars Choral of the Cathedral.1 An attempt is here made to determine the original purpose of this building. The fabric of this building, as it stands to-day, is basically thirteenthcentury, with much structural alteration, made in the nineteenth century, to adapt it to its new role as a heating chamber. The best available description of the building, while it served as a heating chamber, is contained in a note by P. Macgregor Chalmers, published by the Glasgow Archaeological Society.2 The building measures 32ft. by 17 ft. 6ins., inside, and the walls average some 4ft. 3ins. in thickness. Where this building abuts against the north wall of the cathedral, a part of the late twelfth-century wall of the Lower Church is preserved. The thick walls and the massive buttresses show that the walls were intended to be at least two storeys in height and, in fact, the internal stair, connecting the existing building with the vanished upper floor, is still preserved in the thickness of its west wall. There is an external door in the middle of the north wall but originally this chamber had a door, giving direct access to the Lower Church. This door, built up during the nineteenth century but now reopened, is at the western end of the south wall of the chamber and, within the cathedral, it opens onto the north stair, leading down from the nave to the Lower Church. The vanished upper chamber of this building communicated directly with the north aisle of the choir, where under the window in the westernmost bay are traces of a large ornamental doorway. Only the top part of the window in this bay is original: the lower part was constructed in the nineteenth century, after the top storey of the abutting building had been removed.3