Field Visit

Date 26 July 1910

Event ID 922890

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/922890

Built into the wall, in the interior of an old barn, was found a few years ago a sculptured stone bearing an Ogham inscription. It is a rectangular slab of Caithness sandstone, and measures 3’ in extreme height, 1’ 5” in breadth, and about 4” in thickness. The top and bottom are broken away, the fracture at the top passing obliquely across the stone on the left-hand side, but is probably incomplete owing to the fracture. What remains shows eighteen complete characters and possibly part of a nineteenth. The sculpturing, which is partly in relief and partly incised, and occupies the whole face of the stone, consists of the double rectangular figure in relief, the upper and wider rectangle filled with double spiral ornament arranged in a C-shaped scrolls placed back to back, the lower and narrower filled with an interlace pattern; and below, incised (1) a bird, (2) a fish, and (3) two horsemen (partly broken away).

The stone was discovered in 1903 by Mr John Nicolson, Nybister, who brought it to Sir Francis Tress Barry, and the latter presented it to the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh, where it now is. It is fully described and illustrated in an article by Dr Joseph Anderson in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

Visited by RCAHMS, 26th July 1910.