eriod.
The two eastern bays of the main arcade of the choir are more
elaborately moulded than the others, and round the eastmost pillar on
the south side there is cut an inscription containing the names of John
Fullar and his wife.[291] It has been remarked that the tithes and fees
received by the magistrates probably did not suffice for the work laid
on them by the monks of Dunfermline, and that John Fullar and his wife
volunteered to pay for a part, certainly for the pillar on which their
names are inscribed. In the second bay of the choir from the east on the
north side there is a round arched doorway, now built up, and it led to
the sacristy, afterwards used as a session-house; it was taken down
about 1800, and the meetings were held in a building on the south side
of the nave near the west end, which has also been removed. The present
north and south doorways in the choir are modern, although the south one
is in the position of the old doorway. The choir has no triforium, but
good plain masonry instead, undivided by wall shafts; the clerestory
windows are small and round arched, are divided into two lights by a
central mullion, and have plain tracery in the arch-head. The nave is
divided, like the choir, into five bays, and has no triforium nor
clerestory; there is a deep blank wall above the arcade arches. "This
wall is of rough masonry compared to that in the choir, and the whole of
this part of the church is of a much coarser and ruder description,
betokening a later age. The capitals of the piers are of the very rudest
kind, and are a perfect contrast to the delicate work of the choir. In
the meagre description of St. John's to be found in the books on Perth,
this rudeness is pointed to as a sign of great antiquity, but the
reverse is unquestionably the case. This nave is undoubtedly 'the New
Kirk of Perth' referred to in the Chronicle, in which 'ane Synodall
assemblie' was held in April 1606."[292] Early in the nineteenth century
it was contemplated to raise the nave wall and erect a clerestory; two
of the windows adjoining the tower on the north side were actually
built, and still remain with massive buttresses, surmounted by high
finials; the work was never finished, and could not be carried farther
west, as there is no proper support for such a massive building.
Tradition says that at one time the church extended farther west, and it
seems not improbable that a western tower in the centre of the front may
ha