Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016603
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016603
The three decorated stones now preserved at the new parish church of Inchinnan were moved to their present position in 1965 when the site of the former medieval church was incorporated into Glasgow Airport. Inchinnan was probably an early Celtic foundation dedicated to St Conval, an Irish saint of the 5th or 6th century, and it served as the mother church for the area known later as Strathgryffe (the former county of Renfrew).
The earliest and most important of the three stones has been placed at the centre of the group. It is probably a shrine or sarcophagus cover, and is decorated on its sides as well as its upper face. In the centre of the upper face there is a cross with interlaced knobs at the base, with two pairs of opposed beasts above the cross, and a human figure and four beasts below. The lower scene represents Daniel in the lions' den, which was a popular motif in Early Christian art. The two long sides are decorated with friezes of beasts, while the head has a panel of interlace and on the base there is a coiled serpent. It is not possible to date the carving on this stone closely but it was probably produced about AD 900.
The red sandstone slab to the light of the sarcophagus cover is a fragment of an u plight cross. Each of the three visible faces is divided into three panels of interlace with the central panel of each face filled with ornament. The cross probably dates to the 10th or 11th century, and was used as a grave-marker.
The final stone is a recumbent grave-slab bealing a long-shafted cross similar to several of the grave-slabs at Govan (no. 64) and dates from the 10th to 12th centulies.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Clyde Estuary and Central Region’, (1985).
