Monument record 1354 - ST TARAN'S CHAPEL, TARANSAY

NG09NW 1 0310 9914.

(NG 0307 9916) St. Carran's Chapel (NR) (Site of)


'Teampull Tharain,' or St. Taran's Chapel, with its burial ground 'Cladh Tharain' (W J Watson 1926).
All that remains of the chapel is a slight mound 32' by 18' lying E-W. The burial ground, which is said to have been used exclusively for women (M Martin 1934) was still in use in 1878.
A stone, 16" by 9 1/2" by 3", incised with a Latin cross was recovered from the fabric of a neighbouring house, said to have been built from the ruins of the chapel, and was donated to the NMAS by Thomas in 1861. The name 'Taransay' is a Gaelic-Norse hybrid meaning 'Taran's Isle', Taran being the 6th century St Torannan. (W J Watson 1926) (Note neighbouring name: 'Paible')
RCAHMS 1928, visited 1914; F W L Thomas 1963; J Stuart 1883; M Martin 1934; W J Watson 1926; Name Book 1878.

The remains of St. Taran's Chapel at NG 0310 9914, are visible as a rectangular hollow, bounded by the slight remains of turf-covered walls. It measures c.10.5m E-W by c.5.5m transversely, but the S wall has now almost disappeared due to coastal erosion. It is situated in the E part of the disused burial ground in which St. Keith's Chapel (NG09NW 7) stands. The burial ground is being severely eroded a by the sea, and only the SW arc of its boundary wall can now bw traced.
In the shore below the chapel foundations, erosion has exposed several set stones and a shell midden containing bones and pottery sherds, and it appears that the chapel occupies the site of an earlier domestic structure. More midden material is visible in an eroded slope c. 15.0m E of the chapel.
Surveyed at 1/10,000.
Visited by OS (A A) 7 July 1969.

St Taran's Chapel (005)
The remains of St Taran's Chapel, located above an eroding standing section containing human remains were originally recorded as above by the RCAHMS. The chapel was foundnow to have been greatly effected by erosion. Along its main axis, only the northern wall survives for its entire length, while the southern wall has been completely lost. The southwards wall returns at the eastern and wetern ends of the northern wall have been reduced toe 1.5m in length. The chapel was found to overlie an earlier midden deposit, from which either cattle or horse bone was recovered.
Cook, 2006, 3-4

Martin Martin, 1695a, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland c. 1695, 123-4 (Bibliographic reference). SWE5082.

F W L Thomas, 1860-2a, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 115-17 (Bibliographic reference). SWE7727.

J Stuart, 1867, Sculptured Stones of Scotland, pl. CIII (Bibliographic reference). SWE7073.

W J Watson, 1926, The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland: being the Rhind lectures on archaeology 1916, 299-300 (Bibliographic reference). SWE7623.

RCAHMS, 1928, The RCAHMCS 9th Report & Inventory: Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles, 31-2, No. 109 (Bibliographic reference). SWE5587.

Name Book (County), 1998, Name Books of the Ordnance Survey, Book No. 4, 233 (Unpublished document). SWE4254.

Martin Cook, AOC Archaeology, 2005, Excavations at St Taran's/St Keith's Chapels, Western Isles (Unpublished document). SWE41086.

2005, Taransay, Summer 2005 (Unpublished document). SWE41167.

Martin Cook, AOC Archaeology, 2006, St Taran's and St Keith's Chapels, Taransay, Western Isles (Article in serial). SWE41132.