Field Visit
Date May 1977
Event ID 921632
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/921632
NR 421 998. These remains occupy a remote site at the head of an unnamed glen about 0.8 km NE of Balnahard Farm and 1.25 km from the N point of Colonsay. They comprise the grass-grown ruins of a small oblong building which stands near the centre of a trapezoidal enclosure. The ground slopes gently from N to S, and a standing stone, NR49NW 2 (RCAHMS 1984, No. 87) is situated 31m NE of the enclosure.
The building, which is identifiable as a chapel dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria (Gaelic, Caitriona), is a round-angled oblong structure built of drystone rubble masonry. It measures about 7.1m from E to W by 3.5m transversely within walls about 1.5m in thickness, which survive to a maximum height of 1m; the doorway may have been near the w end of the s wall, but there are no clearly identifiable remains. There is a group of recumbent slabs at the E end of the interior, and outside the SW angle of the building there is a hollowed field-boulder which may have served as a mortar or basin. (Loder 1935) There is a low stony mound opposite each end of the building, and at least two other similar mounds lie in the NE quarter of the enclosure.
The enclosure-dyke, which is constructed of turf and rubble, stands to an average height of about 0.5m and is 1m in width. There are entrances in the S and E sides, and immediately N of the E entry there are the remains of an ovoid structure which measures 5.5m in maximum internal diameter and is entered from the E.
Cruciform Stones:
One of these stones (number 1) was found lying in the enclosure shortly before 1881, when it was presented to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. The other stands at the NW angle of the enclosure.
(1) [Canmore ID 318475] Cruciform slab, probably of epidiorite. The top and right arms are broken, and it measures 0.98m in incomplete height by 0.27m across the arms, the original span being about 0.31m. The surviving side-arm has a projection of 50mm, and the armpits are square. On one face the margin of the upper part of the shaft and the cross-head has been cut back, leaving in low relief an irregular interlace of broad bands. These enclose in the cross-head four holes, 25mm in diameter, pierced through the slab and surrounded by raised margins. (Stevenson 1881; Allen and Anderson 1903; Loder 1935).
(2) [Canmore ID 319763] Cruciform slab of local siliceous flagstone, probably /B ofTorridonian age. It measures 0.88m in visible height and the shaft tapers in width from 0.23m at base to 0.16m below the cross-head, which has been defined simply by rounded notches cut into the edges of the slab to form its armpits. The stone is much worn through use by cattle as a rubbing-post, and it is uncertain whether the side-arms ever projected beyond the width of the shaft. (Loder 1935).
RCAHMS 1984, visited May 1977
