Bressay, St Mary's Church

St. Mary's Church*, Cullingsburgh. Adjoining the site of the broch of Cullingsburgh stands the fragmentary ruin of what Dryden describes as the one cruciform church recognisable in Shetland. Its major axis lies approximately E and W, but nothing now remains to suggest that the whole has had the form of a cross. The S transept has been demolished, and in the other divisions a dry-stone dyke takes the place of most of the walling, but old masonry can be observed both at the E end and in the N transept gable. All of the latter is apparently dry-built, although it may be that it was mortared with clay, which the weather has washed out, leaving the joints bare. The nave has been about 21 ft 6 in long by 10 ft wide, measured within walls about 2 ft 3 in thick. The chancel, similar in width, has been no more than 6 ft long. The N transept is 12 ft long by 8 ft 6 in wide, within walls 2 ft and 2 ft 3 in thick.

Although the fabric was an almost complete ruin when surveyed by Dryden in 1855 (Macgibbon and Ross, i, 157), enough remained to indicate the position of a central E window in the chancel, while a lintelled window in the gable of the N transept was still intact.

TOMBSTONES. Inside the church are three tombstones:

(1) A slab 5 ft 1 in long and 2 ft 3 in wide displays two shields, one above the other. The upper one is charged: Three wolves' heads erased, a crescent at fess point as difference, for Robertson. Flanking the shield are the letters A R, below each of which is what may be an adaptation of the pierced hands, feet, and heart symbolic of the Passion, the dexter set having a five-petalled rose above. The lower shield, which occupies the central position on the stone, bears a rude representation of three bars ermine, for Gifford, and is flanked by the initials A and G. An incised marginal inscription, beginning at the top dexter corner, reads: HEIR LYIS ANE VER/TVOVS & DISCREIT GENTLEWOMAN / AGNES GIFFERD / SPOVSE TO ANDROW ROBERTSONE, followed by an open hand and continuing below the shield, WHA DECEAST / VPON YE XX OF / OCTOBER 1628. At the bottom of the stone is a skull with crossbones.

(2) A slab of blue slate, 6 ft 5 in long by 2 ft 3 ½ in. wide, having an incised inscription at the top, and a circular panel, 1 ft 9 in in diameter, in the middle, displays in a sunk field a finely wrought achievement. The shield is charged with a swan crowned, and is surmounted by a helm with wreath and mantling. The crest is a swan's neck and head crowned. The inscription in Dutch runs: HIER LEYT BEGRAVEN DE / MANHAFTEN COMMANDEVR / CLAES IANSEN BRVYN VAN / DVRGERDAM GESTORVEN / IN DIENST VAN DE NEEDER / LANTSE OOSTINDISE COM/PANGIE ADY 27 AVGVSTY AO 1636. (" Here lies buried the brave commander Claes Jansen Bruyn of Durgerdam, died in the service of the Dutch East India Company on the 27th of August in the year 1636.")

HISTORICAL NOTE. In 1635 the sailor here commemorated had been in command of a squadron which was chasing Portuguese galleons off the coast of Mozambique. His ship, the Amboina, left Surat for home on February 9th of the following year. Delayed by contrary winds, she did not reach the Cape of Good Hope until May 6th, thus missing her consorts, who sailed without her. Starting alone three days later, she encountered violent gales and lost twenty-nine of her crew through an outbreak of disease. Many of the survivors were weakened by illness. Indeed, when she at last made Bressay Sound on August 26th, only twenty healthy men remained. Her captain died next day. The Amboina herself lay off Bressay for many weeks until the invalids recovered. She finally brought her cargo of Persian silk safely to the Texel on October 16th. Durgerdam was a small village on the Zuider Zee, near Amsterdam (Macdonald 1935, 36-40).

(3) A table-stone, 6 ft 2 in by 3 ft 3 ½ in., rests on four square baluster legs. In a sunk panel at the top, two shields accollée with a heart above are flanked by scroll-work. The dexter one only is legible and is charged: Within a bordure, a chevron couped between three (? leopards' heads cabossed). An inscription below the shields is almost obliterated and all that can be made out is: HERE LVIS IN HOPE OF A BLESSED RE/SURRECTION [? THE BODIE] OF MARGA/RET..O… [? A VERTVOVS GENTLEWO]/MAN. At the foot is a sunk panel, which contains, beginning from the dexter side, an hourglass, crossbones, a skull, a coffin, and again crossbones.

(4) A slab in the graveyard, 6 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 10 in., has borne a shield at the top and a skull, crossbones, and an hour-glass in a sunk panel at the bottom, as well as an inscription in the centre. Charges and letters are illegible. The famous "Bressay Stone", which is believed to have been found near the ruins of this church, is described separately under HU54SW 12.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 9 July 1930.

*Sibbald, Description, p.29.

There is much of interest along this very pleasant walk, from the ruined horizontal mills on the Burn of Setter to the 19th-century fishing booth near the church. Only the lower part of the walls survive of St Mary's, and they are thought not all to be of medieval date. The original church is likely to have consisted of the usual rectagular nave and chancel, which was later enlarged with the addition of transepts, thus creating a cruciform church. There is an old record of enlargement in the early 17th century, and St Mary's seems to have been replaced a hundred years later by a church built in the main Maryfield community on the west coast.

Gathered into the ruins of the church, there is a very weathered table-tomb, along with two 17thcentury tombstones, one commemorating 'ane vertuous & discreit gentlewoman', Agnes Gifferd who died in 1628. The other bears an inscription in Dutch to 'the brave commander', Claes Jansen Bruyn of Durgerdam, who served the Dutch East India Company and died in 1636. His ship is known to have been on its way home from Mozambique when it encountered severe gales and lost many of its crew through disease. Having reached the shelter of Bressay Sound, its unfortunate captain died the following day and was buried here.

The history of this church-site goes back into the 9th or 10th century, for an important cross-slab of that date was found sometime before the mid 19th century near the church. The stone had an extraordinary subsequent history, for it was first taken to Gardie House, then to the churchyard south of Gardie House, thence it was sent to Newcastle for exhibition in 1852 and twelve years later from Newcastle to the museum in Edinburgh (now in NMS). The design of the stone appears to copy many of the features of the earlier cross-slab from Papil, and it bears an inscription in ogham letters (see p.17).

Even earlier than its ecclesiastical use, there was an iron-age broch on the site, now marked by the large stony mound beneath the north-west corner of the churchyard.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Shetland’, (1997).

HU 5209 4221 The ACCORD (Archaeology Community Co-production Of Research Data) Project was an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded research project led by the Digital Design Studio (Glasgow School of Art), with the University of Manchester, RCAHMS and Archaeology Scotland, which worked with 10 community groups across Scotland from October 2013 to March 2015. The project aimed to co-design and co-produce 3D digital data of heritage sites that are of significance to the community groups and which they wished to record.

The ACCORD team worked with the Bressay History Group, 8–9 October 2014, at the abandoned settlement of Cullingsburgh (HU 5209 4221) to record a gravestone, dedicated to a 17th-century shipwreck victim (Commander Claes Jansen Bruyn) in the burial ground using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) and to model a ruined manse using photogrammetry.

Archive: ADS and National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE)

Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council

Stuart Jeffrey, Cara Jones and Mhairi Maxwell – Glasgow School of Art

(Source: DES, Volume 16)