Unst, Norwick, Bartles Kirk

HP61SW 4 6488 1463.

(HP 6488 1463) Bartle's Kirk (NR) (Site of)

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

'The almost obliterated traces of an ....erection of apparently great antiquity, termed by the inhabitants 'Bardle's Kirk', erected, as the local tradition has it, in honour of St Bartholomew. Four large and two smaller stones are still standing, date of erection not known.

The first four of these stones are 8' in length and 2' 10" in girth; the two last 6' 6" and 5'2" each in length, and of the same girth as the former. Situated west of the lower of the two stones are two smaller ones which appear to mark a grave.

Excavation has produced one entire stone urn; one large urn with fractured section; one large rubbing stone, measuring 3'7" in length by 2'7" in breadth and two celts, one of which is hollowed out at one end to fit the thumb and forefingers so as to afford a firm hold. Fragments of steatite urns, containing what are believed to be human ashes, have also been found here.

Scattered through all the ground outside the four largest stones, and at a depth of three to five feet, are numerous fragments of broken vessels, etc. There are also numerous stones, many of them large, brought from a distance.

T Edmonston 1873.

Five small standing stones still remain.

Name Book 1878.

There are no remains of this church. In the vegetable garden of the modern farm-house near the site, however, there is a setting of four upright boulders, averaging about 3' in height and 1'8" in cross-section, which stand in two groups 19' apart, the distance between the first pair being 8' 2" and between the second pair 5'.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1930.

Four stones as described by RCAHMS remain at the site. In the area enclosed by them are three earth-fast boulders, just protruding through the soil. The situation, on a slope, and the position and character of the stones indicate that this is not the site of a church but more likely the last vestiges of a 'Neolithic-Bronze Age house although the remains are too scant for classification.

The tradition of a church and the name 'Bartle's Kirk' are still known locally.

No stones were noted in the area to the W in a cultivated field, but to the E at HP 6495 1465 is an upright stone 1.0m high, 0.6m wide, 0.3m thick with another earth-fast block beside it, apparently broken, measuring 0.3m high, 1.0m wide, 0.3m thick. Both have been there as long as local people can remember.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (RL) 26 April 1969.