Forteviot Churchyard
Carved Stone (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Forteviot Churchyard
Classification Carved Stone (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Forteviot No.7?
Canmore ID 196867
Site Number NO01NE 10.04
NGR NO 0514 1747
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/196867
- Council Perth And Kinross
- Parish Forteviot
- Former Region Tayside
- Former District Perth And Kinross
- Former County Perthshire
Invermay 2, Perthshire, cross fragments
Measurements: H 0.72m, W 0.53m, D 0.29m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NO 0598 1664
Present location: at Forteviot parish church.
Evidence for discovery: the cross had been destroyed shortly before 1770 and its fragments were described in 1796 in the Statistical Account. A plain stone was erected in the original base around 1840, and in 1891 Allen was shown the base, together with three fragments of the cross on a nearby clearance cairn. The fragments were later taken to Forteviot Church, and at some point between 1978 and 1997 fragment 1b was re-used in the retaining wall on the east side of the Water of May and re-discovered in the latter year.
Present condition: broken and damaged, with parts of two carved faces surviving.
Description
These two fragments are conjoining and show that the shaft must have been about 0.30m in thickness and more than 0.57m in width. Parts of faces B and C survive, both edged by flat-band mouldings with inner roll mouldings. Face B shows parts of four panels of ornament: just a corner of the uppermost panel, above a narrow horizontal panel of key pattern, above a rectangular panel of diagonal key pattern, and finally part of a panel of median-incised triangular interlace. Face C bears part of a larger figural panel in which a human figure brandishing a club strides behind a docile-looking boar or pig. The animal is behind an upright strip, perhaps the trunk of a small tree.
Date range: ninth century.
Primary references: Statistical Account, vol 20, 125; ECMS pt 3, 327-8, nos 1a and 1b; Simpson 1997; Aitchison 2006, 115, 118-19 (Forteviot 7), 125-31 (Invermay 1a); Hall 2011, 148-9.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2018
NO01NE 10.04 0514 1747
A fragment of a sculptured sandstone slab lies against the outside of the E wall of the church's N aisle. On one face it bears the low relief figure of a man, apparently in pursuit of a bear-like animal. Portions of legs and heads of other animals, otherwise now lost, can be seen along the broken edges of the stone. The one surviving shaped edge bears a panel of key pattern decoration. This stone appears to be additional to the six listed by Allen and Anderson (1903).
T E Gray photographs, 1990, 1991; Information from RCAHMS (IFr) 26 September 2001.
