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Recording Your Heritage Online

Event ID 567083

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Recording Your Heritage Online

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/567083

Wing-like promontory bounded by shell sands, site of the MacNeil's 18th-century seat, and an important religious settlement dedicated to St. Barr. Cille Bharra (Kilbarr or St. Barr's), founded 7th century The ruins of three medieval buildings (probably 12 th century and later) within a rubblewalled burial ground, similar to the group at Howmore in South Uist. A fourth chapel (the parish church) stood near the road, but was demolished c.1830. Main chapel (roofless by 1625 and now missing its gable ends), a lime-mortared oblong of coursed boulders, the floor originally about 2 ft lower. Various round-arched openings are strengthened on the inner face by inward sloping jambs arranged almost as crude, pointed arches. Burial chapel to north, probably post-Reformation (16th century), built by the MacNeil chiefs and reroofed in the 1970s. It houses the cast of Clach Chille Bharra, an important late 10th or early 11 th-century cross-slab discovered here in 1865 and now in the National Museum of Scotland. It also houses four late medieval graveslabs, probably of MacNeil chiefs, carved with swords and foliage, one bearing animals and a galley in relief. At least one of these can be attributed to the Iona School, and another to the Oronsay School of carvers. Above the altar is a modern figure of St. Barr, whose image was traditionally kept here and held in great veneration. Local customs associated with this saint testify to an entwining of pagan and Christian beliefs, the melding of superstition and religion that has endured for many centuries in the Isles. To the south, the scant remains of a second burial chapel, with surviving round-headed window.

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

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