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Rousay, Church Knowe, 'st Mary's Chapel'

Chapel (Medieval), Cremation(S) (Prehistoric)(Possible), Inhumation(S) (Early Medieval) - (Medieval)

Site Name Rousay, Church Knowe, 'st Mary's Chapel'

Classification Chapel (Medieval), Cremation(S) (Prehistoric)(Possible), Inhumation(S) (Early Medieval) - (Medieval)

Canmore ID 2175

Site Number HY32NE 24

NGR HY 3960 2783

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/2175

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Orkney Islands
  • Parish Rousay And Egilsay
  • Former Region Orkney Islands Area
  • Former District Orkney
  • Former County Orkney

Archaeology Notes

HY32NE 24 3958 2783

(HY 3958 2783) Chapel (NR) (Site of)

OS 6" map, Orkney, 2nd ed., (1900).

The remains of a chapel existed here about the beginning of the 19th century. It stood on 'Church Knowe'.

Name Book 1880.

The site of a chapel, on 'Church Knowe', known locally as 'St Mary's Chapel' (Information from Mr T Sinclair, Banks, Rousay). Now no trace, although a slight rise marks the site.

Visited by OS (NKB), 12 June 1967.

This low mound was excavated in 1983 as part of a Community Programme local history project. It proved to be a natural deposit of boulder clay, but had served as a focus for funerary activity apparently in both prehistoric and later times. All features recorded were plough-damaged and only those originally cut into the subsoil survived.

Of five putatively Christian extended inhumations in dug graves, four were oriented E-W, one N-S. Trial trenching did not reveal any traces of an enclosure nor were any structural remains uncovered, other than a narrow, curving slot pre-dating at least two of the inhumations. This can only tentatively be associated with the remains of three cremations (two contained in extremely coarse pottery vessels set in small pits, the other in a small fire-reddened hollow in the natural clay) and with a circular pit, 0.4m diameter, containing a ' sooty' deposit.

The finds, which included worked flint, flat-headed iron rivets/nails , mortar and much modern material all came from the ploughsoil.

J Marwick 1984.

Activities

Field Visit (September 1979)

St Mary's Chapel (Church Knowe) HY 3958 2783 HY32NE 24

Just above the shore at Hull ion jetty, a slight rise marks the site of the chapel which stood stood until the early nineteenth century. It was the chapel of the half-urisland tunship of Frotoft.

RCAHMS 1982, visited September 1979

(Name Book Orkney, No. 16, p. 193; Marwick 1924, 19; RCAHMS 1946, ii, p. 227, No. 605; OR 460)

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