Building record MAB37047 - TRINITY STONE, BRECHIN CATHEDRAL

The 'Trinity Stone', also known as the 'St Mary Stone': a Class III Pictish cross-slab of old red sandstone.

The 'Trinity Stone', also known as the 'St Mary Stone': a Class III Pictish cross-slab of old red sandstone. It measures 3ft 2ins high x 3ft wide and is sculptured in relief on three faces and bears an incised Hiberno-Saxon inscription. It was discovered in a garden near the Cathedral which covered a portion of an old graveyard (the date '1782' incised onto the slab is believed to be the year of its discovery) and the stone was formerly kept at Aldbar Chapel (NO55NE0008), but it is now within Brechin Cathedral. The surviving stone lacks its back, top and bottom. The front is decorated with an equal armed Latin cross (unusually without interlace decoration). In the centre is a medallion of the virgin and child with the inscription in Hiberno-Saxon and Greek '.s.mr.mr.chri.' (Mary the mother of Christ). On the top arm is a bird (possibly the holy dove), on the left and right arms a pair of angels supporting the central medallion and on the bottom arm two haloed figures, one of which may be St Peter with his keys, the other possibly St Paul. The background to the cross is decorated with at top right and left the remains of two winged figures and at bottom left, probably the eagle symbol of St John and at bottom right probably the lion symbol of St Mark, which would make the other two figures the symbols of Ss Matthew (a human - a hand is visible) and Luke (a bull - a hoof is visible on a book). The right and left sides of the slab have a panel corresponding to the arm of the cross. They both contain a human standing figure. The cross would perhaps have had a panel at the top showing the usual symbol of God the Father, a hand issuing in blessing from a cloud, making this a portrayal of the Trinity, the later medieval dedication of Brechin Cathedral.

Stuart, J, 1856, 1, 43 (Bibliographic reference). SAB9274.

Allen and Anderson, J R and, 1903, [Untitled], 245, 249-52 (iii) (Bibliographic reference). SAB12185.

Record last edited

Jan 7 2021 2:46PM