Monument record 829 - TEAMPULL BHUIRGH, BORVE, BENBECULA

NF75SE 13 7693 5027.

(NF 7693 5027) Teampull Bhuirgh (NR)
OS 6'map, Inverness-shire, 2n ed., (1904)

The ruined Teampull Bhuirgh (Church of the burg or castle) is ablut 500 yards south-west of Borve Castle, Benbecula (See NF75SE 12). In 1915, it was almost covered with blown sand and the eastern end was hidden. The church was about 46ft long by 17ft 10ins broad.
RCAHMS 1928.

The remains of this church, generally as described above, lie in a slight excavated hollow in the top of a sand dune. The walls, which are roughly mortared, are best preserved on the south and east sides where original facings can be seen. Two window recesses are visible in the east ends of both lateral walls.
Surveyed at 12500.
Visited by OS (JTT) 25, May 1965.

The chapel, Teampull Bhuirgh, measures internally 14m E to W by 5m N to S, with a simple rectangular plan. The lower portions of roughly mortared walls of local rubble stand to about 1m high internally. A window recess is visible in the E end of each long wall. Drifted sand has built up the external ground level to the top of the walls. The remains of the chapel are set into a large flat-topped mound which stands 4m above the surrounding machair. This mound is formed by the sand-covered remains of a settlement which dates back to the later Iron Age, if no earlier, on the evidence of abundant pottery found on its lower slopes.
Inf: Historic Scotland, June 1992.

The area to be scheduled is rectangular, 120m NW to SE by 80m NE to SW, to include the chapel and the mound in which it sits.
Entry in the Schedule of Monuments, HS

A gilt bronze plaque was found at this site in 1943. The following description of the finding is published:
It was got in excavations conducted… into the Teampull Bhuirgh. This ruin is recorded in the Outer Hebrides Inventory (no 341) but in 1943 the site was completely infilled with sand and only a small fragment of masonry stood out… He started to dig a hole about three by two feet wide and at a depth of about eight to ten feet came upon a black layer which he interpreted as the floor. This excavation was against the inner side of one of the chapel's side walls. From here he tunnelled (the tunnel later collapsing) along to the corner of the east wall and came upon an 'altar' about three feet away from it, about three feet high and four feet long. This was open at one end and was free from sand so that he could crawl inside it. He found a skeleton alongside with its feet actually sticking into the 'altar', feet to the east and head to the west. The plaque was on its chest. Also associated with the skeleton… was a rusty piece of iron which Mr Sidwell thought was a sword or dagger hilt and a piece of 'grainy coloured bone' like an 'elongated ostrich egg. Both of these are now missing. In the centre of the top of the 'altar' was a piece of grey slate stone containing cubes of iron pyrites and it and the stones around it were helt together by lime mortar. This was later broken up by vandals though a piece of the stone with pyrites was preserved. Mr Sidwell also dug below part of the 'floor' at the end of the chapel and discovered an area of skeletons about eighteen inches apart and the same above or below each other.
Caldwell, in PSAS 1977-8, 379-80

RCAHMS, 1928, The RCAHMCS 9th Report & Inventory: Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles, 100, No. 341 (Bibliographic reference). SWE5587.

David H Caldwell, 1977-8, 'An enamelled plaque from Borve, Benbecula', 378-80 (Bibliographic reference). SWE41120.