Field Visit
Date 1999
Event ID 879754
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/879754
The ruins of the disused Cross parish church and cemetery lie adjacent to the coast edge, to the east side of Backaskail Bay. The building, which measures some 21m in length by 7m in width, is thought to date to the late 17th or early 18th C. This church is said to have been built on the foundations of a pre-reformation chapel, dedicated to the Holy Cross. A 16th C account mentions an earlier cemetery with outsize skeletons' being uncovered by erosion. Previous surveyors have noted the presence of midden deposits and drystone walling in the coastal section as indicative of an early settlement. It has been suggested that the site may be of prehistoric date and that the location is also a likely one for a high status Norse settlement. The coastal section is protected by a sea wall which has been recently renewed and no eroding deposits were noted on this visit. There is a mounded area which extends from the eastern side of the cemetery which may represent archaeological remains, covered beneath a thick layer of blown sand. The mound measures some 40m in diameter and stands up to 2m high. Earthworks, previously noted at the west side of the cemetery, have been tentatively identified as the remains of an early church enclosure or part of an earlier settlement. Ref.: RCAHMS (1946) #157; RCAHMS (1980) #174.
Coastal Zone Assessment Survey, 1999
