Field Visit
Date August 1982
Event ID 1146108
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1146108
St Magnus Church HY 4661 3038 HY43SE 1
Although a church in Egilsay is featured in saga and hagiographical accounts of the martyrdom of St Magnus in 1116 or 1117, the existing building conspicuously sited on nearly the highest ground on the island, probably dates from the second quarter of the twelfth century. It is the only survivor of a distinctive group of great round-towered churches in Orkney and Shetland. The barrel-vaulted, square-ended chancel had an upper storey above the vault, entered from the nave by a doorway over the chancel arch; the nave has opposed N and S doorways near its Wend and the curiously-tapering tower, which survives to a height of 14.9m, is attached to its W wall. In use until the early nineteenth century, it is shown in Hibbert's drawing of 1822 to have had flagstone roofs, but these had been removed before Dryden's first visit in 1846; now in guardianship, and in good order.
RCAHMS 1982, visited August 1982
(Orkneyinga Saga chs. xlviii-xlix, with MagntJss Saga Skemmri chs. xi-xii, Magntfss Saga Lengri eh. xxv, and Legenda de Sancto Magno: 'Jo Ben', sixteenth century, in Barry 1805, 438; Stat. Acct., vii, 1793, 337, also 1978, 198; Hibbert 1822, engraving opposite p. 608; Sir Henry Dryaen, drawings 1846-51, one in Dryden ColJection, Northampton Central Library, others in NMRS; Anderson 1873, pp. xci-xciii; Anderson 1881, 34-7; Tudor 1883, 346-8; Muir 1885, 68 and 114-15; MacGibbon and Ross 1896-7, i, 26-7, 100, 127-35; ii, 209; Craven 1901, refs. as index; Goudie 1904, 51-2; Dietrichson 1906, 95-105 (Norwegian text), 23-8 (separately paginated English text, summary); RCAHMS 1946, i, pp. 43-4; ii, pp. 228-9, No. 611; Radford 1962, 182-3; OR 807)
