4. Examples are also found of the addition of a chancel or nave to an older simple oblong church, thus showing that the chanceled church was a later form of plan than the primitive single-chambered church. The examples of these ancient churches with added chancel or nave will be first given, and then the churches built on the plan of nave and chancel.[79]
5. In many instances the use of the pointed arch and ornaments of Gothic character is quite distinct. These churches are evidently of a date between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although in other parts of the country first pointed work would be assigned to the thirteenth century, that rule does not apply in the Western Highlands and Islands, where first pointed features are often continued till much later times, and where the later styles of Gothic are scarcely represented.
(_A_) CHURCHES DRY-BUILT AND CHURCHES WITH SLOPING JAMBS.
Numerous ruins and fragments of chapels are found on the west coast of Lewis. Among these, near Gallowhead, the great west headland of the island, stands (Fig. 43) Tigh Beannachadh (blessing house), “a not
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Tigh Beannachadh, Gallowhead.]
greatly dilapidated chapel [a simple oblong], internally 18 feet 2 inches in length [by 10 feet 4 inches], with a broken east window, having an altar beside it and a doorway, and a niche in each of the side walls; the south doorway entire and flat-headed, the masonry very rude and _without lime_.” “It would seem to be a very old building.”[80]
On a narrow “shelf, in the face of a high precipice, under Dun Othail, about ten miles south of the Butt, is found the ground work of a chapel, internally 17 feet long and 11 feet 3 inches wide, with remains of the south doorway. The walls are 4 feet thick, and there is no _cement used_.”[81]
At the south end of the island, Teampull-na-Trianaide (Trinity Church) consists of two not greatly dilapidated buildings of unequal size, the larger and more ruinated one internally 62 feet in length. The only detail,
a broken round-headed doorway near west end of north wall. Connected with it on that side by a low semi-circular vaulted passage (Fig. 44), lighted by a small flat-headed window on each side, is the other chapel, 23 feet in length. This building is probably of considerable age. Windows are rude, flat-headed, and 3 feet long.[82] See Note by Captain Thomas.[83]