Harris, Rodel, St Clement's Church. View from NE showing NNE and ESE fronts of tower.

Description Harris, Rodel, St Clement's Church. View from NE showing NNE and ESE fronts of tower.

Date 1900

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

Catalogue Number SC 746774

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of IN 918

Scope and Content St Clement's Church, Rodel, Harris, Western Isles, from the north-east St Clement's Church, the most impressive of the pre-Reformation churches remaining in the Outer Hebrides, stands above the harbour at Rodel, a village on the south coast of Harris. Its solid, early 16th-century rectangular tower, a distinctive landmark unique in the Western isles, was photographed in 1900 by the Victorian photographer, Erskine Beveridge. The four-storeyed tower, built of pale sandstone imported from Carsaig on Mull, stands on a sloping site at the west end of the main body of the church (left). At mid-height is a cabled string-course of dark schist, broken at the corners and centre of each wall face. Below it are plain slit windows, and above are small lancets. At the top of the tower is a corbelled and crenellated parapet. The church is surrounded by a small graveyard where many of the Macleods of Dunvegan and Harris, and several revered Gaelic poets, including Mairi Nighean Alasdair Ruaidh, are buried. The south wall of the church contains a magnificent tomb built in 1528 for Alexander MacLeod (also known as Alasdair Crotach of Dunvegan) who is thought to have founded the church. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/746774

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap