White Ness, St Ola's Church

Whiteness 1 (St Olaf), Shetland, cross-slab fragment

Measurements: H 0.23m, W 0.24m, D 0.03m

Stone type: grey sandstone

Place of discovery: HU 3866 4442

Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB.248)

Evidence for discovery: found in 1933 during wall-building when the kirkyard was enlarged and given to the museum in 1937.

Present condition: broken and worn.

Description

This fragment comes from the lower part of a cross-slab and has two intact edges (faces B & D), which are plain, while both broad faces are carved. Face A is bordered on either side by a narrow roll moulding, within which are two flatband mouldings on either side of a panel of interlace, into which the flatband mouldings extend in the lower part of the slab. This is a simple but sophisticated design. Face C bears the lower part of a cross-shaft formed of two parallel mouldings which become a triquetral knot at the foot of the shaft. Stevenson suggested that the carving of face C might be secondary to that on face A.

Date: eighth century.

References: Stevenson 1981, 285-7; Scott & Ritchie 2009, no 60.

Compiled by A Ritchie 2016

Whiteness 2 (St Olaf), Kirkhouse, Shetland, carved fragment

Measurements: H 0.25m, W 0.23m, D 0.08m

Stone type: grey sandstone

Place of discovery: HU c 3866 4442

Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB.257)

Evidence for discovery: found during drain-digging in 1939 near the graveyard at Whiteness, and given to the museum in 1946. It is likely to have come originally from the graveyard and to have been re-used.

Present condition: broken and worn, with a short length of one edge intact. One broad face is carved but the other broad face has been chipped away.

Description

This fragment bears an incised design of asymmetric key pattern.

Date: ninth century.

References: Stevenson 1981, 287; Scott & Ritchie 2009, no 58.

Compiled by A Ritchie 2016.

Whiteness 3 (St Olaf), Shetland, ogham-inscribed cross-slab fragments

Measurements: H 0.29m, W 0.34m, D 0.07m

Stone type: red sandstone

Place of discovery: HU 3866 4442

Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB.256) and Shetland Museum, Lerwick (ARC 8057)

Evidence for discovery: fragment IB.256 was found during grave-digging in the kirkyard in 1938 or 1939 and was presented to the museum in Edinburgh in 1946 by Peter Moar, a Shetland antiquary. He had previously found fragment ARC 8057 ‘in refuse’ in the graveyard around 1940, which he presented to the museum in Lerwick in 1980, apparently not having realised that it was part of the same stone. The join between the two fragments was proved physically in 2008, when IB.256 was taken to Lerwick on temporary loan. Stevenson knew nothing of the Lerwick fragment when he discussed IB.256 (1981), though the ‘unpublished fragment in the County Museum’ to which he refers on page 286 and which he had evidently not seen may in fact be ARC 8057.

Present condition: broken and worn.

Description

These two conjoining fragments have been trimmed for re-use, except for one edge which is intact. Within a narrow roll moulding, a wider flatband moulding bears part of an ogham inscription in ‘stately’ bind oghams (Forsyth 1996, 500). Within the ogham band is another roll moulding forming a frame around two sides of a panel of diagonal knotwork formed of a ribbon with a median line. Between the knots are pairs of small bosses.

Date: tenth century.

References: Stevenson 1981, 285-7; Forsyth 1996, 495-502; Scott & Ritchie 2009, no 49.

Compiled by A Ritchie 2016

HU34SE 3 3866 4442

(HU 3867 4443) St Ola's Church (LB) (Site of)

OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed. (1903)

A low platform in the north side of the graveyard, which is still in use, is probably the site of the chapel.

(MS. notes by A MacDonald, Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, 29 September 1967)

A fragment of a grey sandstone cross-shaft with inter-lacing was found in the churchyard in 1933 and is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS, Accession no. IB 248).

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1937

In 1938 an iron axe-head, of late 9th century Viking type, was found with bones in a stone-lined grave. The axe is in the Town Hall collection, Lerwick.

RCAHMS 1946; H Shetelig 1954

There is no trace of the church at the OS site. The 'low platform', referred to by MacDonald,is the foundations of a building shown on the OS 6" 1903,and now demolished. The axe is in the Lerwick Museum (accession no: ARC 65381).

Visited by OS (RL) 3 May 1968

A fragment of red sandstone, sculptured on one side and bearing four or five oghams, (acc no: - ) and a fragment of grey sandstone having a meander pattern sculptured on one side (acc no: IB 256-7) were presented to the NMAS in 1946-7 by Peter Moar. They were dug up originally in the churchyard at Whiteness.

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1949

NMAS IB 257 - found by Mr J H Goodlad in 1939 when digging a drain past the crofthouse on the croft known as Kirk-house, some 100 yards from the churchyard. He got the impression that the stone could have been re-used in a previous drain. Mr Moar acquired the stone from Mr Goodlad (information from Mr Goodlad personally, 1975).

(J Close-Brooks, NMAS, 16 October 1975)

A D S MacDonald and L R Laing 1969.