Sanda Island, St Ninian's Chapel
Burial Ground (Period Unassigned), Chapel (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Sanda Island, St Ninian's Chapel
Classification Burial Ground (Period Unassigned), Chapel (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Firth Of Clyde; St Ninian's Church, Sanda Island
Canmore ID 38698
Site Number NR70SW 1
NGR NR 72755 04572
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/38698
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Southend
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NR70SW 1 72755 04572.
(NR 7277 0456) Chapel (NR) (In Ruins)
(NR 7274 0458) Cross (NR)
St Ninian's Chapel stands within a burial-enclosure on the N shore of the island of Sanda. In the absence of any closely datable features it may tentatively be ascribed to the later Middle Ages. The building is rectangular on plan and measures 10.2m from E to W by about 6.3m transversely over walls some 0.8m in thickness. The N and S walls still stand almost to wall-head level, but the two gable-walls are preserved only to a height of about 1.8m above floor level. The entrance doorway, placed towards the W end of the N wall, is square headed. Only the window in the S wall now remains intact. This is a simple square-headed opening with a lintelled embrasure. Immediately to the E of the embrasure a worn stone basin, provided with a drain-hole discharging into the thickness of the wall, projects from the internal wall-face. This appears to be a piscina. When Captain White visited the chapel shortly before 1873 a second stone basin was to be seen incorporated within the sill of the embrasure but this has now disappeared. Of the other windows nothing now remains but the external sills and the lower portions of the embrasures.
Against the centre of the E wall there stands an altar comprising a rectangular stone base surmounted by a freestone slab, now broken. A shallow rectangular socket cut into the rear margin of the stone may have been designed to house relics.
The churchyard wall has been rebuilt within comparatively recent years; its S side is on the same alignment as the S wall of the chapel, which in consequence is enclosed on three sides only.
Immediately to the W of the chapel there may be seen what appear to be the turf-grown foundations of a small rectangular building measuring about 3.2m square over all. This may possibly be the burial enclosure referred to in certan early descriptions of the island, of which one dating from about 1630 records: "at the syde of that Chappell there is a litle well of compass of stones four-square of ten foot (3.0m) length and breadth within. And they say that the bones of certaine holie men that holie man that lived in that Illand is buried within that place", (W Macfarlane 1908).
The site of the "spring or fresh water well called St Ninians Well", mentioned in the same description on account of its therapeutic powers, cannot how be indentified.
The chapel is included in Fordun's list of ecclesiastical foundations in the Western Isles, compiled at some time during the second half of the 14th century, the dedication being ascribed variously to St Sennan, St Ninian and St Adamnan.
In the burial ground are two Early Christian stones, one an upright cross-slab (NR70SW 1.01) situated close to the NW corner of the chapel, and the other a massive slab, roughly cruciform (NR70SW 1.02), which stands erect 14m north of the NW corner of the chapel. A worn 17th c recumbent slab of the MacDonalds of Sanda lies on the floor of the chapel below the south window.
RCAHMS 1971, visited 1965
Field Visit (2 November 1977)
The ruins of St Ninian's Chapel (name verified) within its disused graveyard are as described and planned by RCAHMS. The walls are in imminent danger of collapse. The footings of the "small rectangular building" to the west of the chapel remain, though the purpose is uncertain; the Early Christian cross-decorated stone (illustrated by RCAHMS fig 155) stands erect within it. The other, apparently undecorated slab stands further to the north within the graveyard. Surveyed at 1:10,000.
Visited by OS (NKB) 2 November 1977
Reference (2001)
Late medieval chapel, associated by Fordun in the 14th century with St Adomnan and described as a sanctuary.
(1) Cross-slab, 1.91m in visible height by 0.56m, much worn. The W face bears in relief a 0.41m ringed Latin cross whose rounded armpits merge with a hollow inner disc. The shaft, 0.54m high, is carried on a tall narrow pedestal. The background is divided into panels bearing ?interlace and rows of small bosses, which continue below turf-level. The E face appears to have borne a similar design.
I Fisher 2001
