Monument record MWE149924 - Eaglais na H-Aoidhe

The works were required due to recent extreme storm damage to the current coastal protection at the base of the church, which had threatened to destabilise the building and caused erosion of the in-situ archaeological layers. The erosion area below the church was photographed, cleaned and recorded, with some human bone found within the eroded material. Alongside this recording, a 0.4m-wide trench was excavated behind the stone revetment, as part of ground preparation works ahead of sheet piling required to safeguard the church.
Within the initial trench, evidence of previous erosion of the upper layers of topsoil and subsoil were noted, and several areas of human bone were exposed and potential grave cuts revealed. In order to limit the amount of skeletal material being exposed, the initial piling trench was widened to the side of the revetment, into an area that had mainly been truncated by either construction of the revetment or previous erosion events.

A further burial was partially exposed within the extended trench, with the upper right arm and some ribs of a severely truncated skeleton revealed immediately behind the recent erosion scar, and the upper left side of a skeleton further southwest. While the other remains were recorded and left in situ, the truncated skeletal remains were recorded, lifted and reinterred within the unaffected part of the grave.

In addition to the trench work, a second erosion area southwest of the church was rapidly recorded and evaluated, revealing extensive layers of midden material containing shellfish, animal bone and pottery sherds.

AOC Archaeology Group 2015

AOC Archaeology Group, 2015, Eaglais na H-Aoidhe, Aignis. Archaeological Works DSR. (Unpublished document). SWE41278.

Rose Geophysical Consultants, 2017, Eaglais na H-Aoidhe, Aignish, Geophysical Report (Unpublished document). SWE41279.