St Ninian's Isle

St Ninian's Isle
RCAHMS notes that “St. Ninian's Church was abandoned at the Reformation, but was venerated locally until its destruction in 1750. The graveyard continued in use until c.1850. The site was recovered by excavation by Prof. O'Dell between 1955 and 1959, revealing the foundations of a 12th century church, overlying a pre-Norse(?) church, which in turn overlay an Iron Age site (possibly a wheel house) yielding pottery datable to about the 2nd century AD. Each level was accompanied by contemporary graves, those of the Iron Age being centred on a crouched burial of late Bronze Age type, which lay SW of the chancel of the medieval church.”
One picture from 1959 is worth visiting the RCAHMS site in itself, even if just to glimpse the delightfully mischievous sense of humour of the archaeologist who decked out one of the finds with a tartan cap….. I will not spoil the secret by reproducing the picture here – for those with an enquiring mind, it is at the end of the ‘images on line’ section, the one with the definitive 1950’s wheelbarrow!