Field Visit
Date 10 October 2002
Event ID 613608
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/613608
Fibreglass statue of St Triduana, standing, wearing full-length drapery and holding a thorny twig.
(The wooden original, holding in front of her a thorn on which an eyeball is impaled, is now in the chapel.)
The building housing the well was erected around 1438 by Sir Robert Logan when his family owned the Barony of Restalrig. It was built with two storeys, the upper one was a chapel, and the lower one contained the well where pigrims came to bathe their eyes. In 1906 the building was renovated under the direction of the Earl of Moray. The steeply pitched roof was added by Thomas Ross. The statue was presumably added at this time.
In 1992 the original was removed from the roof and placed inside the chapel. A fibreglass replacement was made by Stephen Gordon, conservationist at Historic Scotland.
According to the breviary of Aberdeen, Triduana was born at Colosse and accompanied St Rule on his journey to Scotland (about A.D. 337) with the bones of St Andrew. At Rescobie in Angus, she settled into a life of religious seclusion. Whilst there she came to the attention of Nectan, a Pictish chief, who asked her to be his wife. Realising that it was her eyes that had attracted the chief, Triduana tore them out with a thorn and sent them to him. She moved to Restalrig where she healed the blind.
St Triduana's Well was a place of pilgrimage for people with eye complaints.
Inspected By : D. King
Inscriptions : None Visible
Signatures : None Visible
Design period : Well c.1438 / restored 1906
Year of unveiling : 1906
Unveiling details : 1906
Information from Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (PMSA Work Ref : EDIN1018)
