Oronsay Priory, interior. View of cloister arcading.

Description Oronsay Priory, interior. View of cloister arcading.

Date 30/6/1895

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 740721

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of AG 2202

Scope and Content Cloister, Oronsay Priory, Argyll & Bute The ruins of Oronsay Priory stand at the west end of the small island of Oronsay, accessible by foot from its larger neighbour, Colonsay, at low tide. The priory was founded by John I, Lord of the Isles, between 1325 and 1353 as an Augustinian community, but little is known about its subsequent history. The building seems to have progressed intermittently through the 14th and 15th centuries, but by the early 17th century it was in a ruinous condition. The Victorian photographer, Erskine Beveridge, photographed the priory c.1897. The mid-14th-century cloister is still defined in the corners by all four of its original L-plan rubble piers. Only two of the cloister arcades still stand, and only the south range (left), with its five round-headed arches, is original. The west range (right), with seven triangular arches formed by inclined slabs set on slab capitals, is a reconstruction of an early 16th-century rebuilding of the arcade, carried out using original fragments in 1883. In the early 16th century three sides (north, east and west) of the cloister were rebuilt with triangular-headed openings by the mason-sculptor, Mael-Sechlainn O Cuinn, who trained in the Iona School and is named on two of the inscribed pier slabs incorporated in the existing west arcade. By the late 18th century the north side had crumbled, and a century later only the south arcade remained. The west side was reconstructed in the late 19th century, but no further work was undertaken on the cloister, and it remains incomplete and roofless. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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