Ground Survey

Date October 2007

Event ID 556415

Category Recording

Type Ground Survey

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/556415

NR 9924 7058 We undertook a formal survey to stone-bystone level of detail of the ruined chapel, a simple rectangular building with a single entrance to the N during October 2007. Thick-walled clay-bonded structure built entirely of local schist without dressings. The curvature of the sides of the W gable wall perhaps suggests an early Christian date; some evidence for localised rebuilding of the collapsing wall remains. The interior had evidently been partly cleared out before the late 19th century.

A general survey of the graveyard and its perimeter wall was completed. To the E and NE the wall is sited upon a broad, low bank that may represent the remains of a much earlier boundary structure. To the NW, as the ground begins to slope steeply down, stonework at the surface may represent further parts of the early boundary - possible wall core. To the SW, where the existing wall has been breached, grazing animals have caused substantial erosion; a number of graves are partly exposed including a substantially built cist burial. The inscriptions of later monuments were recorded.

Archive deposited with Bute Museum, RCAHMS., Mount Stuart Archive.

Funder: Discover Bute Landscape Partnership Scheme; partners - HLF; SNH; The Mount Stuart Trust, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Argyll and Bute Council; Buteshire Natural History Society; Bute Community Council.