Another Ancient Stone

An Incised Cross slab at Fowlis Wester Kirk.

(The following is extracted from a longer article written by John Borland in 2016)

‘The kirk has its cross slab, now standing in the kirk for some years for protection, and two other fragments, but a far less known slab bearing only an incised cross is incorporated beneath the path from the north-west gate of the graveyard to the door of the church. It was first noted officially in 1988 by local archaeologist Niall Robertson. It is 1.38m long by 0.9m wide, irregular in shape and oriented roughly east-west with the incised cross at the west end. The slab’s proportions suggest that it was always intended to be a recumbent rather than an upright stone. A number of linear scores along one edge of the stone have been interpreted as possible plough scars, suggesting it lay outside the churchyard at one time. However, as some of these scars bifurcate [divide in two], a passing plough may not explain their origin. When the new path was laid about 15 years ago the slab went from being largely overlooked to being overlain.

‘A chance meeting with Daniel Moray-Parker led to Jim McColl getting in touch with the Session and, on the day in October when the team came to uncover, Audrey McColl suggested the right place to be looking. In the absence of other dateable ornamentation, it is very difficult to say with absolute certainty how old the incised slab actually is. However, it sits comfortably within a corpus of similar sculpture in north-west or highland Perthshire. There is a clear trail of sunken and outline cross slabs, many recumbent, leading out of Argyll, down Strath Fillan, along Glen Dochart and eastward along the glens and straths of Perthshire. Examples can be found at St Fillan’s Priory, Suie, Balquidder, St Fillans, Comrie, Killin, Fearnan, Fortingall, Dull, Old Faskally and elsewhere. Many of these stones are located at known early chapel sites and those at Fortingall and Dull sit alongside Pictish sculpture.

‘The cross slabs may represent the spread of Christianity from the Scots’ kingdom of Dál Riata into southern Pictland. It is entirely possible this simple carved stone at Fowlis Wester, visually unimpressive as it is, represents the coming of Christianity there and thus pre-dates the Pictish sculpture on display inside the church.’