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Eilean Munde, St Mund's Chapel, Burial Ground

Burial Ground (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Date Stone (18th Century) (1706), Grave Slab (Medieval) - (Post Medieval)

Site Name Eilean Munde, St Mund's Chapel, Burial Ground

Classification Burial Ground (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Date Stone (18th Century) (1706), Grave Slab (Medieval) - (Post Medieval)

Alternative Name(s) Loch Leven; Eilean Munde, St Munn's Old Parish Church, Grave Slabs

Canmore ID 108577

Site Number NN05NE 1.01

NGR NN 0831 5910

NGR Description Centred NN 0831 5910

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/108577

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Lismore And Appin (Lochaber)
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Lochaber
  • Former County Argyll

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EILEAN MUNDE (St. Munda's Isle, after St. Fintan Mundus who founded a church here in the 7th century). Burial ground shared by the Camerons of Callart, the Stewarts of Ballachulish and Ardsheal, and the Macdonalds of Glencoe, with some good surviving gravestones. Ruinous church, burnt out 14 95; repaired 16th century and in use until c.1653.

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

Archaeology Notes

NN05NE 1.01 Centred 0831 5910

Two medieval carved funerary slabs are to be seen inside the church ruin whilst a number of post-Reformation slabs are to be found both in the church and in the burial ground outside. The burial ground is still in use as such.

RCAHMS 1975, visited August 1970.

Activities

Field Visit (August 1970)

FUNERARY MONUMENTS

Medieval

Numbers 1 and 2 are inside the church; number 3 is about 5 m NE of the burial-enclosure of MacDonald of Glencoe [NN 0840 5905].

(1) Tapered slab with bevelled edges, 1.90 m long by 0.50 m wide at the head; the bevel is decorated with a single row of nail-head ornament. At the top of the stone, within a border composed of two plain mouldings, there is a mounted warrior armed with a spear, while below are two pairs of animals and a single-hand sword flanked by double plant-scrolls. (Drummond, Monuments, pl. xciii, I). lona school, 14th-15th century.

(2) Tapered slab, 1.75 m long by 0.44 m wide at the head, broken into two pieces. Within triple plain mouldings there is a sheathed sword with lobated pommel and canted quillons expanded at the ends. To the left of the sword is a double plant-scroll surmounted by a pair of animals, and to the right a sword-belt. In the lower part of the stone are a comb, a pair of shears, and a casket. (Drummond, Monuments, pl. xciii, 2). 14th-15th century.

(3) Tapered slab with pointed foot, 1.90 m long by 0·45 m wide at the head; it is very worn. At the top there may have been an inscribed panel, but no letters are now visible. The rest of the stone, which is bordered by a channel containing paterae, displays a claymore flanked by plant-scrolls. c. 1500-1560.

Post Reformation

Of the following, numbers 4 and 5 lie within the church and the remainder in the burial-ground.

(4) A worn recumbent slab of schist partly covering a stone-lined burial-recess some 1·2 m in depth, within which there may be seen a human skull and other bones. A marginal inscription reads: HEIER LAYS IOHN CAM[E]RO[N] [ ?WHO DEPAR]TED [?THIS LIFE T]HE[ ?DAY OF M]ARCH ANO 1662 I IN THE 51 YE[A]R OF HIS AEGE AND I THIS DONE BY ORDER OF EWO[N]CAMERON HIS SON & MARGRET CAMPBELL HIS SPOUS[E] (en.1). Within the marginal inscription there are the following lines of verse:

THIS MAN WHILE HE LIVED HERE BELOW / WAS ASTEMED BY ALL WHO DID HIM KNOW / HIS VARTH MEAD HIS DEALLINGS CLEAR / WHICH GEANED HIM FRENDS BOTH FAR AND [NEAR] / HE LEAD AN UPRIGHT AND IUST LIFE / HE SHOUNED / AND SLIGHTED FRIVOLOUS STRIFE / TO SUPERIOURS HE GAVE THER DUE / HIS EQUALS FOUND HIM IUST AND TRUE / HE WAS AVERC TO WRONG OR HURT / OR TO DISPISE THE MINNOR SORT / ALL HONEST MEN HE DID BEFREND / TO CONIVE AT VICE HE CULD NOT YEILD / TO WORLDLY RICHES HE WAS NO SLAVE / YET GOD SUFFICENCE [T]O HIM GAVE / HIS NIGH[T]BOURS O[FFTE]N HE COULD [?SEE] / [I]N TIME OF THERE NEEDSESETY / TO C[R]AUE HIS HELP AND HIS ADVIC / TO GIVE THEM BOTH HE WAS NOT NICE / A MAN OF [H]IS [N]ATION SELDOM HATH

BEEN MOR L[AME]NTED AT HIS DEA(T)H.

(5) A recumbent slab of slate (Pl. 24D) commemorating Duncan McKenzie, tenant at North Ballachelish, and his wife Ann Stewart, and commissioned by their grandson, Duncan McKenzie, smith at Laroch. At the foot of the stone there is a relief-carving (PI. 24E) showing McKenzie, arrayed in full Highland costume, in the act of killing a dragoon at the battle of Prestonpans in 1745. Beneath is the inscription: THE FATE OF AN ENGLISH DRAGOON WHO I ATTACKED D. MC. K. AT THE BATTLE OF I PREST. P. WHERE HE FOUGHT UNDER IPRINCE CHARLES STEWART. This stone is evidently of early 19th-century date.

(6) A table-tomb erected in memory of Allan Cameron of Corrychiracha, who died in 1726, by his son Donald Cameron. It bears a shield charged with three bars, for Cameron.

(7) A table-tomb (Pl. 25A) commemorating Anne Cameron, spouse to John Cameron, son to Culchennan, who died in 1756. Beneath the inscription there is an armorial achievement incorporating a shield charged with three bars, within an architectural surround. For crest there is a dexter arm, armoured, holding a sword. A label above bears the motto PRO REGE ET PATRIA (‘For King and Country'). At the base of the slab there is a reversed monogram of the letters J C and A C.

(8) A recumbent slab of slate (Pl. 2 5B) commemorating William Rankin, successively tenant in Inshree and in Carnach, who died in 1800, and his spouse Mary MacInnes. At the base of the slab there are carved the emblems of mortality, and the conventional epitaph: AS RUNS THE GLASS I MAN'S LIFE DOTH PASS I LIFE HOW SHORT I ETERNETY HOW LONG.

(9) A large recumbent slab of slate (Pl. 25C) erected in memory of John Stewart, who died in 1817 aged 18, by his parents, John Stewart and Jean McDougall at Slate Quarry (Ballachulish). In the centre there is a remarkable pseudo-armorial achievement. The shield is charged: on a field or, a fess cheeky surmounted by abend, a cinquefoil in chief. The supporters are: dexter, a wild man bearing a club; sinister, a lion. For crest, upon a (baron's) coronet of four points, there is a dove bearing in its beak an olive branch. The motto is SOLAJUVAT VIRTUS (‘Virtue is the only reward').

CARVED STONE. Built into the wall of the MacDonald of Glencoe burial-enclosure [NN 0840 5905], which stands above the SE shore of the island, there is a triangular pediment (Pl.25D) carved with the monogram initials J MC D and the date 1706. An inscription records that this stone was removed from the gable of John MacDonald's house at Invercoe, which fell in 1893. John MacDonald, 13th of Glencoe, was the eldest son of the chief who was murdered in 1692, and his house is said to have stood upon the site of the one associated with the massacre (en.2).

RCAHMS 1975, visited August 1970

En.1 The person commemorated was perhaps John, elder son of Alan Cameron, 16th of Lochiel, and father of the famous SirEwen Cameron. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert Campbell, 9th of Glenorchy, and pre-deceased his father c. 1632 (Burke's Landed Gentry (18th ed., 1965-72), i, 116; Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiell, chief of Clan Cameron, Abbotsford and Maitland Clubs (1842), 63). If this identification is correct, the third numeral in the date in the inscription may have been altered by recutting.

En.2 Name Book No. 49, p.15

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