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Luchruban,prehistoric and monastic settlements

A Scheduled Monument in An Taobh Siar agus Nis, Na h-Eileanan Siar

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Coordinates

Latitude: 58.5109 / 58°30'39"N

Longitude: -6.281 / 6°16'51"W

OS Eastings: 150765

OS Northings: 966033

OS Grid: NB507660

Mapcode National: GBR B6W7.7SZ

Mapcode Global: WGY1N.HB8S

Entry Name: Luchruban,prehistoric and monastic settlements

Scheduled Date: 24 January 1994

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Source ID: SM5878

Schedule Class: Cultural

Category: Ecclesiastical: monastic settlement; Prehistoric domestic and defensive: settlement

Location: Barvas

County: Na h-Eileanan Siar

Electoral Ward: An Taobh Siar agus Nis

Traditional County: Ross-shire

Description

The monument consists of the remains of an early Christian monastic settlement, overlying traces of a prehistoric settlement, on an almost inaccessible rock stack.

The monument stands on a 20m-high rock stack, separated by a deep cleft from the adjacent cliff-top. Excavation below the later structures has recovered pottery of possible Neolithic date, but no other traces of prehistoric settlement are visible on the surface. The visible features are the remains of an enclosure containing a pair of linked cells, probably an early Christian eremitical or monastic establishment.

The cells stand at the SE corner of the summit of the stack. An almost circular foundation, some 3.1m in diameter and with a single wall niche, is connected by a passage 3m long and 0.6m wide to a rectangular foundation lying to the NE. The latter measures 2.6m by 1.7m internally. The entrance to both stuctures is by the linking passage, into which a doorway opens from its SE side opposite a large recess in its wall. The SW, circular, cell may have had a corbelled roof, and the passage was probably lintelled. The cells lie on the S side of an oval enclosure formed by a substantial wall, now reduced to turf-covered foundations.

The area to be scheduled consists of the whole summit area of the rock stack, and measures a maximum of 80m E-W by 70m, to include the cells and enclosure and an area around them in which traces of activity associated with their construction and use, and with the earlier settlement, may survive. The area is marked in red on the accompanying map.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance as an early Christian monastic establishment occupying the site of an earlier settlement. As such it has the potential, through excavation and analysis, to provide information about the successive users of the site, and in particular about the date and material culture of the many remote stack and island sites frequently referred, on little good evidence, to the Early Christian and/or pre-Norse Christian periods.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

RCAHMS records the monument as NB 56 NW 4.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

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