A NEW PICTISH STONE APPEARS IN CAITHNESS

 

New Pictish stones keep being discovered. Important contributions to the corpus of Pictish Art in recent years have been the Conan Stone in 2020 and the new Aberlemno stone in March 2022. Now a new Pictish stone has emerged from the same burial ground in Caithness in which the Ulbster Stone was found in 1770. This stone was found by a local resident with an interest in Family History, is being managed now by Yarrows Heritage, and will be offered to Thurso museum (North Coast Visitor Centre) to sit alongside the original Ulbster Stone. To distinguish the two, it will be called by the name of the burial ground: St Martin’s Stone.

 

The Finding of the Stone

Fiona Begg Wade now lives in Thurso but was brought up in the village of Ulbster on the coast just south of Wick. With her background in Family History, and her love of the burial ground near where she used to play as a child, she started to record the memorial inscriptions of the burial markers in the old St Martin’s Burial Ground at Ulbster. Separated from the village by a low hill, the burial ground near Ulbster Mains farm used to surround an old chapel, of which no trace now exists. In the early 18th century, a mausoleum for the Sinclair family was built in the burial ground, perhaps on the site of the former old chapel. It bears the inscription 1700 on the weathervane. The burial ground bears the name of St Martin, probably the saint name of the chapel

 

In early September 2022 Fiona was in the burial ground cleaning turf and soil off some of the burial markers, better to see the inscriptions. This is her description of the finding of the stone:

“On one visit to Ulbster Burial Ground I felt something underfoot, and after removing a little of the soil I uncovered a flat gravestone. This gravestone had an inscription for someone who belonged to my family tree. I continued to remove more soil and uncovered more stones. Not all the flat stones had inscriptions, half of them were blank. There were two ladies who had recorded most of the cemeteries in Caithness over thirty years ago. I use their books all the time. These gravestones were not visible at that time, so they had not recorded them. I wanted to photograph and record them. I was working along the row of stones that I had uncovered when I came to a flat stone that was mostly under the soil. While brushing away the soil I noticed some wavy lines, my first thought was that this one had an inscription. Once it was fully uncovered the pattern stood out, it looked amazing. I knew that it was a Pictish stone.”

 

Fiona involved her daughter’s partner, Hamish Lamley of Pictavia Leather in Perth, who has experience of Pictish markings, and he confirmed that the markings were Pictish. He knew Professor Gordon Noble of Aberdeen University, who then came up to have a look at the stone. Professor Noble confirmed that this was a Pictish stone. So, another Pictish stone has been uncovered in St Martin’s Burial Ground at Ulbster, matching the one previously found there in 1770, which is now on display in the North Coast Visitor Centre (previously Caithness Horizons) in Thurso.

 

The first Ulbster Stone

Quoting from Highland Council’s Historic Environment Record, this first Ulbster Stone “once stood in the ancient burial ground attached to the ruined church of St Martin at Ulbster and was subsequently placed over a grave there which assisted in the defacement of one side. At some other unknown date, it was removed and placed upright on an artificial mound in the grounds of Thurso Castle where its exposed position (especially front face turned to Castle and sea) led to further defacement of the sculpture; the front has also been mutilated in the upper third with modern inscription in Gothic letters 'The Ulbster Stone' by which name it is also known”. This fine Class II decorated Pictish Stone is now housed within the Thurso Visitor Centre.