Field Visit
Date August 1974
Event ID 1121948
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1121948
St Mary's Chapel, Iona.
The fragmentary remains of this medieval chapel are situated in arable land some 60m s of the E end of the abbey church. No references to it have been identified before the second half of the 18th century, when it is mentioned by Walker and Pennant. Such architectural details as are known suggest that it was built some time after the foundation of the Benedictine abbey, but its function in relation to the latter is uncertain. Douglas's Map of Iona, surveyed in 1769, shows that one branch of the medieval causeway that led N from the Nunnery past MacLean's Cross swung E to pass the W end of the chapel before terminating at the SE angle of the abbey enclosure. This may suggest that the chapel was regularly visited by medieval pilgrims to Iona, rather than being reserved for the private use of the monastic community. Although Walker states that it was used as a burial-place for men, and Reeves records the discovery of several uninscribed tombstones within the chapel, these cannot now be identified.
All that is now visible of the structure is part of the N wall, standing to a height of about 2·8m and measuring about 8·5m in length and 0·9m in thickness, and a corresponding section of the s wall, greatly decayed on the outer face. The masonry is of granite rubble, well coursed and bonded with rough lime-mortar. The interior and immediate surroundings of the chapel are now encumbered with debris to a depth of at least 0·9m above the original level. Complete clearance of the foundations, carried out in 1874-5 under the direction of R Rowand Anderson, was recorded by Sir Henry Dryden in drawings which have been utilised for the accompanying figures. His survey shows that the building measured 16m by 4.7m internally, the walls at each end surviving to an average height of 0.4m above a flat foundation-course. A break in the upstanding portion of the N wall, some 6·1 m E of the NW angle, marks the position of a doorway with three orders of roll-moulded jambs rising from a chamfered plinth; the diameter of the rolls of the two outer orders was 0.09m, and that of the quirked inner order 0·07m. This doorway was similar in composition to, but slighter than that of the 'Michael Chapel'; in conjunction with the elongated ground-plan, it suggests a13th-century date of construction. The orientation of the chapel, like several other peripheral buildings at Iona, is much closer to true E than is the abbey church, the deflection in this case being some three degrees S of E.
RCAHMS 1982, visited August 1974
