Scheduled Maintenance
Please be advised that this website will undergo scheduled maintenance on the following dates: •
Tuesday 3rd December 11:00-15:00
During these times, some services may be temporarily unavailable. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Field Visit
Date October 1981
Event ID 921629
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/921629
This site lies within the W corner of a field known as Pairc na h-eaglais ('field of the church'), about 250m NW Balaruminmore farmhouse. The N boundary of the site is defined by a low crescentic bank which stands to a maximum height of O.5m, while the S half is traversed by an area of rig-cultivation. The remains of the enclosure are thus roughly semicircular on plan, measuring about 22m in diameter from E to W. Standing within this area are the foundations of a small oblong building which, although aligned E-W, does not appear to have been a chapel and was probably associated with the later agricultural use of the site. It measures 7m in length by 3m transversely within round-angled drystone rubble walls 1m in average thickness; the entrance is near the centre of the S side-wall.
The burial-ground is said to have been chiefly devoted to the interment of unbaptized infants (OS Name Book 1878, 94; Grieve 1923, 2, 242), but its antiquity is shown by the existence of two carved stones of probable Early Christian date.
Carved Stones
(1) Carraig Mhic A' Phi ('MacFie's Stone'). This cross-decorated standing stone, which in local tradition is associated with the murder in 1623 of Malcolm MaeDuffie, last chief of the clan (Grieve 1923, 1, 323-4; Loder 1935, 131-2), stands in a railed enclosure 3m E of the NE angle of the building described above. It originally stood on a low knoll about 10m to the NE, with the carved face to the W, but was damaged by cattle in 1918 and, following its re-erection in 1934, was again knocked down about 1960. As the result of its reconstruction in 1977, it now stands, facing N and upside down, with about 0.5m of the original top concealed in a mortared rubble base. The accompanying drawing (RCAHMS 1984, No.317, A) is partly based on a photograph taken about 1870. The stone is a slab of Torridonian flagstone, much laminated in recent times; it is broken across, and the pieces have been joined with metal straps. Its height in the 19th century was about 2.45m, of which 0.6m was buried*, and it measures 0.45m in maximum width by 100mm in thickness. In the upper part there was carved a large cross with irregular grooved outline, having a rectangular boss in relief at the centre and slightly expanded arms. Only the side-arms and central part of the cross are now identifiable. (Photo by Revd J B Mackenzie, C.1870, in NMRS and reproduced in Loder 1935).
(2) A cross-marked stone was discovered in 1979 below the turf some 3m NE of the building, during the construction of the railed enclosure for MacFie's Stone, and it was reburied in the enclosure in 1981. It is a roughly shaped cruciform slab of Torridonian flagstone, measuring 1.01m in length by 0.42m across the arms and 0.35m in width across the shaft. Pecked out at the centre is a simple outline cross whose side-arms coincide with those of the slab. The visible outline of the top arm is longer than that of the shaft, but a natural channel on the central axis may have been considered as part of the latter.
RCAHMS 1984, visited October 1981.
*Grieve's statement that the stone was originally 4 or 5 feet (1.2m or 1.5m) higher is probably based on his identification of the upper arum of the cross as the lower part of a Crucifixion (Greive 1923, 2, 241 and 1, fig. 132 on p.270).
