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South Ronaldsay, St Margaret's Chapel
Building (Period Unassigned), Chapel (Period Unassigned)(Possible)
Site Name South Ronaldsay, St Margaret's Chapel
Classification Building (Period Unassigned), Chapel (Period Unassigned)(Possible)
Alternative Name(s) St Margaret's Hope; Erland Terrace
Canmore ID 9635
Site Number ND49SW 9
NGR ND 4450 9348
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/9635
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish South Ronaldsay
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
ND49SW 9 4450 9348
(ND 4450 9348) St. Margaret's Chapel (NR) (Site of)
OS 6" map (1900).
The site of an ancient chapel said to be that of one of seven pre-Reformation chapels which are said in 'Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland', to have existed at one time in South Ronaldsay. It is supposed to have been established about the 13th century.
Name Book 1879; RCAHMS 1946.
No trace.
Visited by OS (ISS) 30 April 1973
Excavation in advance of housing development revealed partial foundation of a wall 2.2m long x 1m wide, and curving towards the W at its N end. Successive flagged and clay floors within the arc of this wall overlay an earlier wall to the W. Finds included wall plaster, glass, a thimble and German stoneware showing the later wall to be post-medieval. The evidence did not suggest that the earlier wall was part of the medieval chapel. An L-shaped boundary wall 9m long x 1m wide, was found to the NE of the above.
J Hedges 1979.
On the traditional site of the medieval St Margaret's Chapel, the foundation of an agricultural stone building, 8m by 4m with a curved N wall and drain, was excavated. Imported British pottery and glass bottle fragments suggested a usage between the mid 18th and early 19th century. A lid knob of Westerwald stoneware was also found.
Sponsors: SDD (AM), NoSAS
J W Hedges and B Smith 1981.
The finds from these excavations are held in Tankerness House Museum, Kirkwall, under accession numbers 1985.20-64.
Information from Mrs A Brundle (Tankerness House Museum), 3 August 1995.
Publication Account (1996)
This attractive small town lies at the head of a perfect natural harbour, the bay stretching far inland and thus providing excellent shelter. It is thought to have been named after St Margaret of Antioch, although local tradition prefers a link with the Maid of Norway. The seven-year old princess died after crossing the North Sea in 1290, but history fails to record exacrly where she died. There is similar uncertainty surrounding an earlier event involving the royal house of Norway. In 1263, King Haakon Haakonsson set off on a punitive expedition to western Scorland, which culminated in the Battle of Largs. After crossing from Norway to Orkney, his fleet sheltered first in Elwick in Shapinsay and then off South Rona ldsay, but scholars are divided over whether the ships lay in St Margaret's Hope or in Widewall Bay to the west. Whichever it was, the king and his men witnessed an eclipse of the sun on 5 August: 'great darkness came upon the sun, in such a way that a small ring was was clear about the outside of the sun; and this continued for about an hour of the day' (Haakonar Saga) .
The oldest structure surviving is a gateway that once gave access into the courtyard of the 17th century house of Smiddybank, built by David Sutherland, that preceded the present 19th-century farmhouse. The gateway is surmounted by the Sutherland arms with the dates 1633 and 1693, and above there is a pediment with the figure of a mermaid. The village and harbour of St Margaret's Hope developed in the 18th century, and there are typical two-storey and attic merchants' houses of that date on Front Road, built cheek by jowl with their crowstepped gables towards the sea. Expansion in the 19th century spread southwards with the buildings along Back Road and round Cromarty Square, including a single-storey smithy which has been restored as a museum. St Margaret's Church and its adjacent manse were built in the mid 19th century in Church Road, the school in 1875 and the Bank of Scotland in 1878. Along with neighbouring Burray, St Margaret's Hope blossomed with the herring fishing, but the blocking of Water Sound with wrecks during the First World War removed access from the North Sea. The Hope survived as a port of call for the daily steamer between Stromness and Scrabster until the route was changed, and only the 19th century pier reminds of busier days in the harbour.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Orkney’, (1996).
