Monument record 651 - CILLE DONAIN, KILDONAN, SOUTH UIST

NF72NW 4 7313 2815.

(NF 7313 2815) Cille Donnain (NR) Burial Ground (Disused).
OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1904)

Cille Donnain. There was no trace of any building in 1914.
RCAHMS 1928.

A chapel at Kildonnan is noted.
Orig Paroch Scot 1854.

The site of this burial ground is occupied by later buildings, now deserted. No trace of the burial ground or of a chapel survive.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (W D J) 7 May 1965.

NF 7315 2816 The site of the church and disused burial ground was rediscovered in 1989 (Fleming & Woolf 1992). The complex, located on a promontory and island within Loch Kildonan, is comparable to the political centre of Finlaggan on Islay and might have been the seat of a bishop. The shape of the church is comparable to plans of others in western and northern Scotland and may be dated to around 1100.
Two small trenches were excavated, one on the loch edge on the S side of the promontory and the other across 'Building C' and the eastern part of the platform on which the church complex was located. The purpose of the loch edge trench was to recover waterlogged deposits of rubbish dumped from the promontory complex. In the deposits contemporary with the platform were the remains of a leather artefact and ceramics including a piece of green-glazed pottery. Beneath these layers were organic deposits containing Early and Middle Iron Age pottery, indicating that the site was in use as an island settlement over a thousand years before the church.
The trench on top of the platform revealed that Building C was formed by lines of uprights which were probably late features such as yard walls. They were set in a deep garden soil which must have been imported to the promontory from nearby infields. The adjacent Building D,and presumably the others in the range of four cells, was constructed on top of this garden soil which contained pottery including wheelturned green-glazed sherds. These have been tentatively identified as wares of the 13th-15th centuries, possibly made in Ayrshire (David Caldwell, pers comm). The buildings and this part of the platform presumably date to the later medieval period, somewhat later than the church.
M Parker Pearson 1995.

82: Kildonan, South Uist, NF 7315 2816
c. 50m diameter, 1m + depth of deposits, surveyed 1989, pasture.
MIA and Late Medieval pottery. See excavation report (Parker Pearson 1995).
Cille Donnain Late Norse church site and disused burial ground (Fleming & Woolf 1992) with range of Medieval 'cell' buildings.
Parker Pearson & Sharples

Parker Pearson, M and Sharples, N, Dun Vulan Environs Survey, South Uist (Unpublished document). SWE41170.

OPS, 1854, Origines Parochiales Scotiae, 366 (Bibliographic reference). SWE9142.

RCAHMS, 1928, The RCAHMCS 9th Report & Inventory: Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles, 120, No. 412 (Bibliographic reference). SWE5587.

A and A Fleming and Woolf, 1992, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 329-50 (Bibliographic reference). SWE27278.

M Parker Pearson, 1995a, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 108 (Bibliographic reference). SWE38861.