Harris, Rodel, St Clement's Church. View from S showing SSW front of tower.

Description Harris, Rodel, St Clement's Church. View from S showing SSW front of tower.

Date 1900

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

Catalogue Number IN 920

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 746776

Scope and Content St Clement's Church, Rodel, Harris, Western Isles, from the south 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, at the west end of the church, is built of pale sandstone imported from Carsaig on Mull, and stands on uneven ground at a higher level than the main body of the church (right). It has a cabled string-course of dark schist about halfway up, broken at the corners and centre of each wall face. At the top is a crenellated parapet, corbelled out, and the tower is capped by a pyramidal slated roof. The church possibly dates from 1528, and was probably founded by Alexander MacLeod (also known as Alasdair Crotach of Dunvegan) whose magnificent tomb lies in the south wall of the church. It was restored in the 18th century, and again in 1873, but the greater part of the tower is of an early 16th-century date. Rodel is the burial place of many of the MacLeods of Dunvegan and Harris. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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