Monument record 471 - TEAMPULL PHEADAIR, NESS, LEWIS

NB56SW 2 5084 6382

(NB 508 638) Teampull Pheadair (NR) (In Ruins)


The church of 'St Peter in Shanabost' (M Martin 1934) or Teampull Pheadair (RCAHMS 1928) was 63ft long (D MacGibbon and T Ross 1896-7). The remains are those of a rectangular building oriented E by S and W
by N. The greater part of the western gable is all that remains, the wall being 3ft thick. 'About the height of the wall head is a scarcement of 4 or 5ins in width, and two putlog holes appear in the gable above. In the centre is a widely splayed window 3ft 4ins high and 6ins broad outside ...'.(RCAHMS 1928)
D MacGibbon and T Ross 1896-7; RCAHMS 1928; M Martin 1934.

Teampull Pheadair, at NB 5084 6382, survives as a rectangular hollow oriented E-W, choked with vegetation and bounded by the greater part of the east gable (not the west, as described by the Commission), c. 5.0m of the N wall, and the footings of most of the south wall.
It measures 19.0m by 6.0m externally, with walls 0.8m thick. Two late grave enclosures are built against the east gable and the surviving part of the north wall.
The burial ground is still in occasional use.
Revised at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (R L) 13 June 1969.

'The monument...comprises the remains of a pre-Reformation church called Teamull Pheadair. The area to be scheduled is rectangular and measures a maximum of 22m E-W 10m N-S.
HS Scheduling Document 19 March 1992.

The church is located at NB 50861 63812 and is as described in the Ordnance Survey visit of 1969…The church foundations … measure between 18 and 19m externally E-W, and 6m N-S. The east gable end is standing to a height of around 5m with vegetation growing on the top of the walls. It si constructed from rough stones and mortar. There are signs of erosion of the mortar in the wall and vegetation growing in the wall cracks. The window lintel is cracked and a timber prop has been put in place… There have been repairs to the wall of the northern burial lair, the eastern lair is in better condition.
The graveyard is enclosed by a wall and is a polygonal shape, measuring overall around 105m E-W and around 88 m N-S. Therer are thousands of low, rough, un-marked gravestones in the cemetery, organised aorund a system of N-S rows of closely packed what appear to be head and foot stones. … The rows continue over the wall foundations of the curch and into the interior, and some at least must therefore post-date the ruination of the building…
Barrowman 2005, 16-17

Twenty-seven burial enclosures were recorded, as were the 114 inscribed gravestones… It is thought that between 2 & 3 thousand small, rough, unmarked gravestones are present… in alignments relecting possibly foot as well as head stones. Full topographic survey carried out.
Barrowman 2006, 11-16

Martin Martin, 1695a, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland c. 1695, 27 (see 2nd ed., 1716) (Bibliographic reference). SWE5082.

D & T MacGibbon & Ross, 1896, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian Times to the17th Century, 83 (Bibliographic reference). SWE4321.

RCAHMS, 1928, The RCAHMCS 9th Report & Inventory: Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles, 2, No. 6 (Bibliographic reference). SWE5587.

Rachel Barrowman, 2005, Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites Survey 2004/5 (Unpublished document). SWE41095.

Rachel Barrowman, 2006, Lewis Coastal Chapel-Sites Survey: Topographic Survey 2005 (Unpublished document). SWE41122.