Reference
Date 2001
Event ID 928499
Category Documentary Reference
Type Reference
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/928499
A cross-marked pillar lies in the burial-ground that is situated on the W bank of the Kilmory River, 180m from its mouth. The name indicates a burial-ground or chapel dedicated to St Maelrubha and an ecclesiastical site was recorded by Pont in the late 16th century, while Martin Martin about 1700 mentioned a chapel on Rum.(i) However, a round-angled structure immediately N of the burial-ground, which has previously been identified as a chapel, appears to be one of the township buildings.(ii) The burial-ground is a raised D-shaped enclosure measuring 14.5m by 12m within a drystone revetment. It contains a number of plain gravemarkers and slabs, the earliest inscriptions being of early 19th-century date.(iii)
The pillar now lies in the N part of the burial-ground, but its probable former site is marked by a slight stony mound about 2m to the NW. It is of medium-grained buff Torridonian sandstone and is carved on the two wider faces, which are the end-grain of the stone. It measures 1.68m in height including a tapered butt 0.3m long, above which it tapers in width from 0.26m to 0.13m and in thickness from 0.15m to 0.12m. On one face (a) there is carved in low relief a cross-of-arcs, 0.19m in diameter within a peripheral bead-moulding. The 'petals' dividing the cross-arms have beaded margins and axial ribs, and at the centre there is a small raised boss having a central hollow. The cross is supported on the cupped upper end of a slightly sunken pedestal whose shaft, 0.22m high and 30mm wide, rises from a broad triangular base with a concave bottom edge. Standing on the upper perimeter of the cross there is the rectangular sunken base of an incised Latin cross about 90mm high. Its upper and lower terminals are triangular but those of the transom appear to be plain, although later pitting make interpretation difficult. On face (b) there is a Latin cross about 0.24m high, carved in the same shallow sunken technique as the pedestal on face (a) and rising from a similar triangular terminal with a curved lower edge. The transverse arms extend to the edges of the pillar, and like the top arm they are weathered so that the form of their terminals is uncertain.
I Fisher 2001, 95-6.
Footnotes:
(i) RCAHMS 1983d, no.17; Blaeu's Atlas (Small Isles); M Martin 1934, 299.
(ii) RCAHMS 1928, No.687; RCAHMS 1983d, no.17.
(iii) For illustrations see J A Love 1983, opp.p.24.
RCAHMS 1928, No.687; RCAHMS 1983d, no.17; J A Love 1983, fig. on p.5; T H Clutton-Brock 1987, 28-9; M Magnusson 1997, 13.
