The architectural development of post-Reformation burial aisles in the northern Hebrides

Citation

Thacker M (2015) The architectural development of post-Reformation burial aisles in the northern Hebrides. In: Herbert M & Meek DE (eds.) In Search of Colmcille: The Legacy of St Columba in Ireland and Scotland. Conference on Slighe Chaluim Chille. Exploring the life legend and legacy of St Columba in Ireland and Scotland, 20.06.2013-22.06.2013. Stornoway, UK: The Island Book Trust.

Abstract
This paper seeks to draw attention to the excellent upstanding archaeological evidence within northern Hebridean burial grounds, and to discuss them as particularly potent places for the negotiation of the social concerns of past communities. Although it is difficult to definitively evaluate where individual monuments might have been completely lost, the coherence of the evidence suggests upstanding survival of ruin structures is generally very good, allowing meaningful comparisons between sites, regions and time periods to be made. These surviving structures display very well how the buildings archaeology of the medieval and later burial ground has developed in more recent periods and, given that the identity of the deceased is also often apparent, they enable important physical and conceptual links to be made between particular burial sites and the buildings and people of the wider settlement landscape. In so doing deeper meanings come to the fore. From the medieval period, through Reformation and Enlightenment, until today, these are sites where practical considerations involving status and identity are displayed and betrayed, and where places constructed from masonry, turf, lime and stones represent people apparently no longer physically with us.