The Lismore Agricultural show has a long very impressive history. John David MacColl, the last secretary of the Lismore Agricultural Society, carefully preserved its archive in a tin box after the Society’s activities stopped around the time of WW2. In due...
The Story so far (June 2022) It seemed very unlikely to us that the wet rushy Glebe Field below the church on Lismore would have held clues to the past, but community archaeological work led by Dr Clare Ellis of Argyll Archaeology since 2015 has revealed that the area...
Yesterday Clare Ellis decided that the team had exhausted the possibilities of the existing trench, although it is likely that a major project to strip the surrounding area would reveal many more artefacts and activities. It is also likely that there are layers of...
Lashing rain and brilliant sunshine, but the diggers battled on, undaunted even when they were deprived of their afternoon hot drink by a power cut at the manse Here are some of the pieces of clay mould used by the metal workers. A rare finding of a fragment of glass...
In spite of the continued battle with rain and mud, each day has been a success – with today the most remarkable so far. Early in the work in the east end of the trench, after a very wet start, two more almost intact crucibles emerged from the peaty mud. Clare emailed...
A (nearly) dry day at last, allowing the team to clear the “funnelled” entrance to the roundhouse, and explore the internal structures. Arguing from roundhouses elsewhere, the Lismore house would have had a low circular/oval drystone wall, possibly topped with...
Work will start on Saturday (21 May – 1 June) on what we hope will be the concluding investigation of the Early Church site at Clachan, establishing the age and significance of the two mysterious built structures in the low-lying rushy part of the glebe (prehistoric,...
The first few days of the dig will concentrate on the roundhouse at the west end of the trench, leaving the wetter end with the square structure for later in the week. With some shelter from the showers provided by Clare’s gazebo, the work was mainly clearing and...
Lismore Public Hall is the most important hub of the island and, before the Heritage Centre, the only place, along with the church, where islanders met as a community. Obviously COVID-19 locked it down, but before that it was the home of ceilidhs, country dancing,...
The following is an excerpt from the most recent newsletter of the Scottish Records Association. written by Lismore Archivist Dr Robert Hay. The Isle of Lismore Historical Society was founded in the 1990s by a group of residents who were concerned that so much of the...
Dr Ange Boyle is currently washing the skeletons from last year’s (2021) excavations. This is a time consuming process. It can take as much as a day to wash a complete skeleton. The bones then have to be laid out on trays and allowed to dry. Ange is selecting petrous...
The good news is that we have started to raise the funding needed for the analyses of the many finds from the September dig. The MacDougall Clan Society of America has generously provided a grant of £1500 specially for work on the bone samples. This will allow...