Archaeology Notes

Event ID 647826

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/647826

NB56NW 4 50781 66013

(NB 506 661) Luchruban (NAT)

OS 6" map, Ross-shire, 2nd ed., (1898)

On the sea coast about 1 mile WSW of the Butt of Lewis is a precipitous grass-covered rock, rising some 60 - 70ft above the sea, and isolated from the mainland by a deep cleft. It is known as Luchruban and has been identified with the 'Eilean na Luchrupain', or Isle of Pigmies or Little Men, recorded by Dean Munro in about 1549, and later writers.

At the SE corner of the summit, which measures about 80ft - 70ft, is a building, built partly underground, which lies NE-SW and comprises an almost circular chamber about 10ft in diameter at the SW end, connected by a passage 9ft long and 2ft wide to a rectangular chamber 8ft long and 5 1/2ft wide. There is an entrance to the passage from the S, and opposite this on the other side there is a recess.

Captain Thomas (F W L Thomas 1890) mentions that within the gallery at the time of his visit, a stair of seventeen steps led up to a third gallery, and underneath them a smaller stair led down from a second but with no exit. Though the gallery walls still remain as shown on his plan, there is now nothing to suggest that stairs ever existed here. The foundations of later buildings were noted within the interior.

Excavated by Mackenzie who found animal and bird bones, peat-ash, and sherds of pottery identified by Stevenson (R B K Stevenson 1948) as Neolithic, but the context in which they were found is not clear.

The structure is enclosed within a turf-covered stone dyke on three sides.

W C Mackenzie 1905; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1916; RCAHMS 1928; R B K Stevenson 1948.

NB 5078 6600. This structure has deteriorated markedly since it was visited by RCAMS in 1928, and is now masked by tumble and vegetation. The inner wall-face of the circular compartment with the recess, and part of the inner wall-face of the rectangular enclosure are all that remain intelligible. There may well be more structures within the enclosure.

The topographical situation, the plan and the tradition of a chapel suggest that this may well be an early Christian oratory or hermitage. The Neolithic pottery could come from an earlier occupation of the site as it was found by 'digging up the floor of the so-called kirk, and between the upper layer of loam and the lower of sea sand'.

Surveyed at 1:2500

Visited by OS (R L) 16 June 1969.

Probable Early Christian hermitage comprising oratory and cell linked together with a passage (A C Thomas 1971).

A C Thomas 1971; L R Laing 1975.

Scheduled as Luchruban, prehistoric and monastic settlements.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 24 January 1994.

This Chapel site was included in a research project to identify the Chapel sites of Lewis and the surronding islands. The Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites survey recorded 37 such sites, with an additional five possible ecclesiastical sites.

R Barrowman 2005