Oronsay Priory, from the south

Description Oronsay Priory, from the south

Date 24/8/1898

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

Catalogue Number SC 740736

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of AG 1719

Scope and Content Oronsay Priory, Argyll & Bute, from the south 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 monastic buildings are surrounded by a 19th-century drystone dyke (foreground) which encloses a burial ground to the south containing numerous gravemarkers, eroded and illegible, lying in rough rows. The priory church, dating from the late 14th or early 15th century, forms the south range of buildings. It contains an aisleless sanctuary and nave, to which a west annexe (left), possibly intended as the base of a tower, has been added. The arch-pointed door gives access to the church. The stonework of the side walls, altered and rebuilt in several places, consists of lime-mortared rubble with slab pinnings. At the east end (right) is the lean-to south chapel or MacDuffie Aisle, dating from the late 15th century. Donald MacDuffie, who died in 1555, was the last known prior of Oronsay, and there is no evidence of continued domestic or ecclesiastical use of the site, except for burials, in the post-Reformation period. In the late 18th or early 19th century the buildings served as a burial place for the MacNeills, lairds of Colonsay and Oronsay, and continued in use for burials and the occasional baptism well into the 20th century. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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