Lewis, Teampall Amhlaigh

Heritage listing

Date Added 24/02/1992 Supplementary Information Updated 27/07/2023 Type Ecclesiastical: church Local Authority Na h-Eileanan Siar Planning Authority Na h-Eileanan Siar Parish Stornoway NGR NB 49023 41541 Coordinates 149023, 941541 — The monument consists of the ruins of a small pre-Reformation Church situated within a graveyard in use. It is dedicated to St Aula (St Olaf). This is the only example of a Norse Saint's commemoration in the Western Isles. It is oblong on plan, twin gabled and orientated NW-SE. The external dimensions of the building are 7.5m by 6.1m over walls 0.7-0.9m thick. The masonry is of random rubble with pinnings and lime mortar. The gables are complete and set back twice: at wallhead (2m) and between skew-put (c.5.5m) and wallhead. The entrance (1.4m high and 0.9m wide) is in the SW wall. There are bar-holes for inner and outer doors. The exterior dressings are chamfered and groove marks on the SE side of the door suggest resetting. Above the entrance on the exterior is a stone carved with the letters: "IB MK" and the date 1681. These are now becoming illegible. The interior lintel of the doorway has fallen and is lying against the NE wall. There are two windows. The one in the SW wall to the west of the entrance is flat headed and dressed with a deep exterior splay. The other (possibly older) window in the NW wall is a narrow slit window with a deep interior splay without dressings. There was probably a slate floor at some time. E of the church is a contiguous rectangular depression about 1.5m deep orientated in the same direction as the church and measuring 11.5m by 5m. The area to be scheduled is rectangular and measures a maximum of 25m WNW-ESE by 10m NNE-SSW to include the church and buried archaeological features which may relate to earlier a

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.