Yell, South Garth

South Garth, Butcher, Shetland, possible cross-slab

Measurements: H c 1.0m, W c 0.43m, D c 0.04m

Stone type:

Place of discovery: HU c 54 99

Present location: lost

Evidence for discovery: found during peat-digging sometime before 1836 and recorded by Thomas Irvine in 1863. There is no recorded chapel site in the vicinity.

Present condition:

Description

This stone may have been a Pictish cross-slab: ‘Both sides were completely covered with figures in relief having a border all round carved in zig-zag diamond and spiral lines’.

Date: uncertain

References: Scott & Ritchie 2009, 10; Ritchie 2011, 25-6.

Compiled by A Ritchie 2016

HU59NW 1 c. 54 99.

A very curious and remarkable stone was found a few years ago near the south-east side of the South Garth during peat casting. It was a thin slab between three and four feet long, about an inch and a quarter thick, and about 16 or 17 inches broad at one end, and a little broader at the other. Both sides were completely carved with figures in bas relief, having a border all round carved in zig-zag-diamond and spiral lines ... The broader end was the top, the extremity of which had been cut into some form but was broken off. (Information from a press-cutting in Irvine collections in Lib Soc Antiq Scot.)

The disappearance of this stone gave rise to a controversy in which an attempt was made to identify it with the Bressay Stone (HU54SW 12). Dr. Charlton, however, noted in 1853, that the Bressay stone was found some years before this one. (J T Irvine quoting letter from Dr Charlton 7 Eldon Sq., Newcastle 20th May 1855).

RCAHMS 1946.

No further information.

Visited by OS (RL) 12th May 1969.