Archaeology Notes
Date - 1969
Event ID 647752
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/647752
NB56SW 2 50850 63830
(NB 508 638) Teampull Pheadair (NR) (In Ruins)
The Object Name Book describes the church as 'The ruins of a church situated on the margin of the Amhuinn Shuainaboist. Attached to it is a grave-yard which is the only one in the district of Ness. Three of its walls are still standing, but the fourth has partly fallen in. Formerly it was the parish Church of Ness and became a ruin in 1829. It is said to have been built in 1756; and to have derived its name from its first pastor; but when first erected is unkown'..
(Name Book 1852)
The church of 'St Peter in Shanabost' (M Martin 1934) or Teampull Pheadair (RCAHMS 1928) was 63ft long (D MacGibbon and T Ross 1896-7). The remains are those of a rectangular building oriented E by S and W
by N. The greater part of the western gable is all that remains, the wall being 3ft thick. 'About the height of the wall head is a scarcement of 4 or 5ins in width, and two putlog holes appear in the gable above. In the centre is a widely splayed window 3ft 4ins high and 6ins broad outside ...'.(RCAHMS 1928)
(D MacGibbon and T Ross 1896-7; RCAHMS 1928; M Martin 1934).
Teampull Pheadair, at NB 5084 6382, survives as a rectangular hollow oriented E-W, choked with vegetation and bounded by the greater part of the east gable (not the west, as described by the Commission), c. 5.0m of the N wall, and the footings of most of the south wall.
It measures 19.0m by 6.0m externally, with walls 0.8m thick. Two late grave enclosures are built against the east gable and the surviving part of the north wall.
The burial ground is still in occasional use.
Revised at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (R L) 13 June 1969.
