THE CHAPEL OF ST. RONAN, North Rona.
The small solitary island of Rona lies about thirty-eight miles north-eastwards from the Butt of Lewis, and about the same distance from Cape Wrath. It is about one mile long and the same in width. Such an island, so far from land, formed a meet spot for the dwelling of an early Anchorite, and here is still preserved the Chapel of St. Ronan. The island was twice visited by Mr. Muir, who thus describes the chapel:—
“Of this rude and diminutive building [the eastern chamber] not much can be said. On the outside it is in most part a rounded heap of loose stones, roofed over with turf. Within you find it a roughly-built cell ([Fig. 37]), 9 feet 3 inches in height, and at the floor 11 feet 6 inches long and 7 feet 6 inches wide. The end walls lean inwardly a little, the side ones so greatly that when they meet the flat slab-formed roof they are scarcely 2 feet apart. ([Fig. 38.]) Beyond the singularity of its shape, there is
Fig. 37.—Teampull Rona.
nothing remarkable in the building, its only minute features being a square doorway in the west end, so low that you have to creep through it on your elbows and knees; a flat-headed window without splay on either side, 19 inches long and 8 inches wide, set over the doorway (see [Fig. 38.]); another window of like form and length, but an inch or two wider, near the east end of the south wall; and the altar stone, 3 feet in length, lying close to the east end.
“Attached as a nave to the west end of the cell, and externally co-extensive with it in breadth, are the remains of another chapel, internally
Fig. 38.—Teampull Rona. Interior West End Elevation.
14 feet 8 inches in length, and 8 feet 3 inches in width. Except the north one, which is considerably broken down, all the elevations are nearly entire, the west one retaining a part of the gable. A rude flat-headed doorway, 3 feet 5 inches in height and 2 feet 3 inches wide, in the south wall, and a small window of the same shape eastward of it, are the only details.
“At what time either of these buildings was put up it is impossible to say. Both are alike rude in their masonry, and between them there is scarcely a difference in the character of their few inartistic details; but be the age of the larger one what it may, the cell, which may be termed the chancel of the structure at large, is certainly by many hundred years the older erection, and in all probability the work of the eighth or ninth century.”[73]
We have here an example of an ancient oratory enlarged by the addition of a nave into a church with nave and chancel.