Note 582 — Chapter VII · THE COÄRBS OF COLUMCILLE.

In a note by Dr. Petrie appended to Sir James Simpson’s Essay on a Stone-Roofed Building in the Island of Inchcolm, as printed in his Archæological Essays, edited by Dr. John Stuart, vol. i. p. 134, he states that no one can doubt that the age of the Abernethy tower is much greater than that of Brechin, and adds, ‘This is the opinion I formed many years ago, after a very careful examination of the architectural peculiarities of each, and I came to the conclusion that the safest opinion which could be indulged as to the age of the Abernethy tower was that it had been erected during the reign of the third Nectan, i.e. between 712 and 727, and by those Northumbrian architects of the monastery of Jarrow for whose assistance the king, according to the high authority of Bede, had applied to build for him, in his capital, a stone church in the Roman style.’ It appears to the author that this opinion, though proceeding from so high an authority as Dr. Petrie, is not tenable, for, first, Bede says nothing about the church being in his capital, but he distinctly says that it was to be dedicated to St. Peter, and there is no dedication to St. Peter at Abernethy; secondly, though undoubtedly older than the tower at Brechin, it cannot, he thinks, be taken so far back as the beginning of the eighth century; and thirdly, the author has been unable to discover any peculiarity so marked as to take it out of the class of the Irish round towers altogether, or to warrant the supposition that it is a solitary instance of a round tower built by Anglic architects in the Roman style.