Oronsay Priory, Great Cross. General view from East.
SC 740703
Description Oronsay Priory, Great Cross. General view from East.
Date 1898
Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Catalogue Number SC 740703
Category On-line Digital Images
Copy of AG 1716
Scope and Content Oronsay Cross, Oronsay Priory, Argyll & Bute, from the east The Oronsay Cross, a late 15th- or early 16th-century disc-headed cross, stands beside the ruins of Oronsay Priory on the small island of Oronsay. The priory, founded between 1325 and 1353 by John I, Lord of the Isles, as an Augustinian community, developed intermittently through the 14th and 15th centuries, but by the early 17th century was in a ruinous condition. This photograph of the cross was taken by Erskine Beveridge c.1897. The cross is 3.67m high and stood, in the late 19th century, close to the south wall of the Priory Church (right). It is fixed in its original socket stone on a three-step rubble base, and faces an east-west direction. The head of the east face (seen here) is decorated with an eight-leaved foliated motif, and the shaft, which tapers towards the head, is carved with seven roundels formed by intertwined plant stems. At the foot of the shaft is an incomplete roundel and two beasts whose tails are linked to the plant stems. Incised in the socket stone are the rays of a worn dial and a Latin inscription naming the sculptor. Thanks to its remote situation, the Oronsay Cross is the best preserved of all the late medieval West Highland crosses. It was carved by the mason-sculptor, Mael-Sechlainn O Cuinn of the Iona school of sculpture, for Malcolm MacDuffie, lord of Colonsay, who probably died between 1506 and 1509. Its inscription is in Lombardic capitals, a type of lettering commonly used in monumental inscriptions before 1500. This means that the cross was probably erected before 1500, but not long before as Donald MacDuffie, who preceded Malcolm as chief, was alive in 1472. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
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