Sandness
Pictish Symbol Stone (7th Century)
Site Name Sandness
Classification Pictish Symbol Stone (7th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Sandness Church; Sandness, St Margaret's Kirk
Canmore ID 228
Site Number HU15NE 8
NGR HU 1912 5765
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/228
- Council Shetland Islands
- Parish Walls And Sandness
- Former Region Shetland Islands Area
- Former District Shetland
- Former County Shetland
Sandness, Shetland, Pictish symbol stone
Measurements: H c 1.10m, W c 0.41m, D c 0.08m
Stone type:
Place of discovery: HU c 1912 5765
Present location: lost.
Evidence for discovery: the stone was seen and sketched by George Low in 1774, when it was in the wall of the church at Sandness, evidently with the carved face outwards. The church was demolished in 1792 and a new one built, and the stone was lost (or built into the new church) by the time that Sir Henry Dryden searched for it in the mid nineteenth century.
Present condition:
Description
This was a rectangular slab with three Pictish symbols incised upon one broad face. There was a rectangle with simple internal ornament over an arch or horseshoe symbol, and below was a large mirror symbol with a double-ball handle.
Date: seventh century.
References: Low 1879, 121; Ritchie 1997, 36-7; Fraser 2008, no 199; Scott & Ritchie 2009, no 1.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2016
HU15NE 8 1912 5765
For Sandness, St Margaret's Kirk, see HU15NE 39.
A symbol stone, noted and sketched by Low, in the wall of Sandness Church, is now lost. It bears a rectangle, horse-shoe and mirror.
G Low 1879; J R Allen and J Anderson 1903; RCAHMS 1946; RCAHMS 1985.
Class I symbol stone (lost) bearing a horseshoe with a rectangle above and a mirror below.
A Mack 1997.
