Campaign to help preserve Pictish stone found at Ulbster
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A heritage trust has launched a fundraising campaign to preserve a rare Pictish stone unearthed in Caithness.
The engraved stone was found by chance near the site of an early medieval chapel, seven miles south of Wick, last September.
Since then, it has been removed and looked after by the Yarrows Heritage Trust, which is to install a replica in its place.
The original is earmarked to undergo specialist restoration before being put on permanent display at the North Coast Visitor Centre in Thurso.
The trust has just received listed building consent for its plans for the stone, thought to date from the sixth or seventh century AD.
It was discovered by Thurso woman Fiona Begg as she researched her family roots at St Martin's burial ground, which adjoins the Sinclair mausoleum in Ulbster.
Her belief that it bore Pictish engravings was confirmed following a visit by Aberdeen University archaeologist Professor Gordon Noble.
The St Martin's Stone is due to be put on show at the centre alongside the Ulbster Stone, which was found at the same burial ground in 1770.
Trust secretary Roland Spencer Jones said the listed building consent allows them to step up their fundraising drive.
He said yesterday: "The stone was face up and the Pictish carvings are very eroded. Another 10 to 20 years and they might have gone altogether."
The trust has received an estimate of between £9000 and £11,000 for the restoration work from Edinburgh-based conservation sculptor Graziella Ainsworth.
Mr Spencer Jones said it is inviting donations via its Paypal account as well as applying for grants from Historic Environment Scotland and local wind farm benefit funds.
He said the replacement stone at the site will have a plaque giving details of the provenance of the original.
The latter, he said, has added to the material which can help experts decipher the meanings of Pictish symbols.
Mr Spencer Jones said the stone has symbols reproduced elsewhere in pieces of Pictish art.
He added: "We don't know what they mean but every stone that is found adds a little bit more to the complicated jigsaw."
