Historic Churches 2020

16 BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON HISTORIC CHURCHES 27 TH ANNUAL EDITION ‘Tombs of the Kings and Iona Abbey’ in about 1880. By the late 19th century there was already a long history of concern over the state of the abbey ruins and the carved stones. (Photographer unknown, Valentine’s Series postcard) Historic Environment Scotland’s redisplay of Iona Abbey site museum. The original St John’s Cross is located in the centre of the image. (Photo: Sally Foster) will, new thinking, effort and resources. The ‘average’ historic church will not be presented with Iona’s scale of challenge and opportunities, but there are universal and contemporary lessons to be derived from its example if the potential of carved stones associated with historic church sites is to be more widely realised. Beyond the starting point of researching and understanding the nature and significance of the resource itself, these relate to understanding how the resource is valued by the various communities associated with a place, including both tangible and intangible values, contemporaneously and historically. That these values may differ and sometimes even cause conflict is actually a fascinating aspect of carved stones’ rich story-telling potential, as well as knowledge needed to inform contemporary place management. Carved stones can play an extremely important role in contemporary place- making and defining identities. They can do this in certain contexts because they do not represent ‘themselves’ but symbolise the concerns of individuals and communities in a metaphorical way. EARLY VALUES: FIRST APPRECIATION OF IONA’S CHURCH RUINS From the late 17th century onwards Iona, along with neighbouring Staffa, became a highly desirable place for the intrepid early traveller and a new breed of antiquarian to visit. As the aesthetic and antiquarian qualities of Iona’s ruins and associated carved stones came to be appreciated, concerns were expressed about crumbling buildings, dung and weed-covered ground obscuring interiors and sculptured monuments, appropriation of carved stones by islanders for their gravestones, badly behaved tourists and damage caused by antiquarians disturbing the ground they searched. By 1899, when the Iona Cathedral Trust was created and acquired ownership of the abbey from the Duke of Argyll, there was therefore already a long history of concern about the condition of the ruins and the carved stones. As a future for the abbey was still being forged, debate continued about how the island’s carved stones were to be treated, and who should, or was prepared to, take the lead in caring for them. Different communities had different views and then, as is still often the case, stewardship of the carved stones also fell between cracks: as artefacts/monuments that often move these are, technically, portable. This is a longstanding curatorial and legal issue. Reflecting back in 1973, a civil servant