Monument record 3 - ST RONAN'S CHURCH, NORTH RONA

HW83SW 1 8091 3235

(HW 8091 3235) St. Ronan's Church (NR)
OS 6"map 1965

St. Ronan's Church, possibly so dedicated from an associated with St. Ronan's Chapel at Europie (NB 56 NW 2) of which it may have formed a hermitage, originated as a small, rectangular, corbelled oratory of Irish type, with its surrounding cashel, possibly in the 7th or 8th century.
Two obscure mounds to the north of the church may be early cells, but otherwise there are no stone structures within the cashel. What may have been a slab shrine is partly exposed a few yards NW of the NW corner of the oratory.
During the Norse Christian period and probably about the 13th century a nave was added to the west end of the oratory. A stone cross of this period from near the church is now at Teampull Mholiudh, Europie (NB 56 NW 3). The area to the west and SW of the church is largely occupied by burials marked by small head-stones, some of them roughly cross-shaped. A prominent feature is the 'Ness Shepherd's Stone', an ornate 19th century stone slab.
N C Nisbet and R A Gailey 1960
"...the monument formerly known as Saint Ronan's Chapel...now known as St Ronan's Church and village settlement, Rona...the area of the scheduled monument as measuring 330m E-W by 420m N-S, defined by the head-dyke on the north, east and west, and by the sea on the south as shown delineated in red on the plan..."
HS Scheduling Document 19 January 1993

H C and R A Nisbet and Gailey, 1960, Archaeol J, 88-115 Figs.1-4, Plates 15A, 17 (Bibliographic reference). SWE4509.

Chris Barrowman, 2006, Monument Warden's Report, and CD of digital images (Unpublished document). SWE41162.