Standing Building Recording

Date 7 December 2011

Event ID 993358

Category Recording

Type Standing Building Recording

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/993358

NF 97000 91341 Following consolidation work (DES 2011, 187) an assessment was undertaken on 7 December 2011 of the interior floor area of the chapel prior to possible access work. The chapel provides a rare and important example of a surviving altar setting. The altar was constructed using lime mortar, is 2-3 courses high and stands to a maximum of 260mm above the interior ground surface. It abuts the fragmentary plaster layer which survives on the internal wall of the E elevation, and is secondary to it. Although the form of the altar is unknown it is probable that it was lime plastered and built of lime bonded stone masonry.

A stone revetment occupies the internal W end of the chapel and encroaches slightly upon the entrance doorway. This feature is a double-skinned L-shaped unmortared stone-built enclosure of up to 2 surviving courses, the outer eastern face of which runs across the full width of the chapel, enclosing a 2.2 x 1.1m soil filled area in the NW corner of the building. The structure is secondary to the primary chapel walls and plaster which it abuts. This structure is now re-interpreted as a probable secondary burial enclosure, possibly extending use of the site (which is not surrounded by the usual 18th- and 19th-century headstones) for burial into the post-medieval period, probably when the chapel was roofless. This evidence also allows the western corbelled loft a more viable medieval use, as before the putative burial enclosures construction this would be comfortably above head height. The disturbed and fragmentary remains of a possibly similar unmortared stone structure also abut the N internal elevation of the chapel. This feature also encroaches upon the entrance doorway.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended). Report: CNES SMR and RCAHMS

Funder: Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Scotland

Carol Knott and Mark Thacker, 2012

(Source: DES)