Kilmorie Cross
Cross (Medieval)
Site Name Kilmorie Cross
Classification Cross (Medieval)
Canmore ID 40560
Site Number NS09NW 6
NGR NS 0107 9515
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/40560
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Strathlachlan
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NS09NW 6 0107 9515
(NS 0107 9515) Cross (NR)
OS 6" map (1900)
See also NS09NW 2.
There is a cross at the E end of the ruins of the church (NS09NW 2). It is composed of a stone pillar and a block of hewn stone with a socket in its base from where the pillar was recently removed. It now lies within 10 yds of its original position. Traditionally, it has been used as a market cross, but originally erected as a monumental stone by some of the McLachlans.
Name Book 1864; Orig Paroch Scot 1854
The cross now stands 6.0m to the E of the chapel. It is complete apart for a major portion of the head.
Visited by OS (DWR) 29 November 1972
Field Visit (October 1988)
CROSS. A churchyard cross of Lowland type has been re-erected in an octagonal base 6m E of the burial-aisle. The tapered shaft measures 1.97m in visible height and 0.35m in width by 0.22m at base, the angles being bevelled to form an irregular octagon. It is plain except for an inverted pair of shears incised near the foot of the narrow NW face. The lower 0.3m of the foliated cross-head, a little more than half of its original height, remains intact (en.10*), and the overall height of the cross was about 2.5m. The octagonal socket-stone, which like the cross is of chlorite-schist, has bevelled sides and measures 0.92m by 0.89m at the top by 0.4m in visible height. This was said in local tradition to be a market cross connected with the annual market granted at 'Kilmary' by Charles II in 1680, and Drummond recorded that it was a 'bargain cross'; 'the contracting parties standing on the step shook hands, their other hand touching the cross' (en.11). The cross, however, is probably of 15th-century date and erected as a work of piety like crosses of West Highland type such as that at Kilmory Knap (No. 76). (Drummond, Monuments, pls. 91, 1 and 2, 92, 1; Steer and Bannerman, Monumental Sculpture, fig.22, 3 on p.l74 (shears)).
RCAHMS 1992, visited October 1988
