Archaeology Notes

Event ID 693256

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/693256

NR15SE 1 16404 51679.

NR15SE 1.1 Carved Stone

NR15SE 1.2 Hugh Mackay's Grave

(NR 1640 5167) Chapel (NR) (In Ruins) (NAT)

OS 6" map (1900)

Hugh MacKay's Grave, Tung Mhic Aoidh na Ranna, is a late Medieval tomb at the NE corner of the burial enclosure, at which on Septmeber 5th 1959 Mrs I Ramsay found fragments of a possibly 6th to 8th century cross-slab bearing an incised outline ring-cross with crosslets. It is said that other grave-stones were disposed of in crannies among the adjoining rocks when the lighthouse was built. Chaplains were being presented to the chapel as late as 1556.

OPS 1854; R C Graham 1895; F Celoria 1960; SDD List 1962

St Orain's Chapel, a simple parallelogram in plan measuring 48ft externally, with features indicating considerable antiquity. It has been enlarged by an eastern extension which comprises rather more than a quarter of the total length. It is unbanded but apparently for the purpose of consolidating the union part of the original gable wall has been left on each side and taken into the thickness of the new wall, so that in the interior there is a resemblance to a chancel. In the older building which is of the First-Pointed Period there are only two windows, a lancet in the N wall, and another along with a pointed doorway in the wall opposite. The W elevation is blank. In the later work all the windows are flat-headed except a lancet in the E gable. The burial ground was cleared for the lighthouse-keeper to use it as a garden but, as nothing would grow in it, it was abandoned and is now a bare paddock.

T S Muir 1855