North Coast Visitor Centre

Ionad Luchd-tadhail a’ Chosta a Tuath

Pictish stone collection

Cruinneachadh Cruithneach

A fascinating collection of three Pictish carved stones from Caithness – the Skinnet Stone with its elaborate interlacing and a rare Pictish depiction of a horse-drawn chariot; the Ulbster Stone with its crosses flanked by numerous symbols and animals; and the earlier Watenan Stone with its crescent and V-rod symbol.

Further information

The Skinnet Stone was excavated in 1861 from the ruined St. Thomas’s Chapel at Skinnet, near Halkirk. At some point after its removal it was broken although all six pieces were professionally conserved and restored in 2008.

The stone is elaborately carved on both faces. One side features a large cross filled with detailed interlacing and surrounded by four decorated discs. Two seahorses or ‘hippocamps’ sit on each side of the cross-shaft and their jaws form into an interlace around the border of the cross. The base of the stone is very damaged but a pair of hands holding the reins of two horses harnessed to a carriage are just visible. Horses were not used as farm animals at this period and it is likely this carving shows a person of Pictish nobility in a chariot. This makes the Skinnet Stone particularly special as only two other known Pictish stones have carvings of horse drawn vehicles.

The reverse side of the Skinnet Stone also has a beautifully decorated cross, set on an elaborate base above two Pictish symbols. A crescent and V-rod sits next to a triple oval, a symbol rarely found outside Caithness. The most exceptional feature of the Skinnet Stone is the carving on two of its edges. One side is carved with long, fluid panels of highly detailed knotwork interlace. Along the top panel the angles of interlacing form three small ‘Greek cross’ designs. The design and production of such a special stone shows that Skinnet was once the home of a well-connected Christian community.

https://her.highland.gov.uk/Monument/MHG13184

The Ulbster symbol stone once stood in the graveyard of the ruined church of St Martin at Ulbster, south of Wick. It was later moved to stand in front of Thurso Castle but is now in the museum. The stone has been defaced at least twice. It was used as a gravemarker at some point in its past and carved with the letters IS. In the 1800s it was also carved with an inscription ‘The Ulbster Stone’ in Gothic script.

The Ulbster Stone has a carved cross on each face. One side has an elaborate Latin cross standing on a base and flanked by symbols and figures. The other side has a equal-armed cross that seems to float in mid-air surrounded by pairs of symbols. The Ulbster Stone is said to have more symbols than any other Pictish monument. These include the crescent and V-rod, a fish, a hippocamp, a double-disc, a step, paired crescents, a lion, a serpent, a flowering plant and a Pictish ‘beast’.

https://her.highland.gov.uk/Monument/MHG1406

The Watenan Stone is the earliest Pictish stone in the museum and possibly dates to the 6th century AD. It is carved with a crescent and V-rod, one of the most common Pictish symbols.

The stone was found in two pieces on top of a small cairn in rough moorland near Groat’s Loch, Watenan, near Wick. Pictish symbols often appear in pairs and so it is possible that more fragments of the stone remain to be discovered. The two stone pieces are different colours as the smaller fragment has been burnt sometime in the past.

The Watenan Stone was conserved in January 2014 and re-joined with a new piece of stone to show what the crescent and V-rod symbol might have looked like before it was broken.

https://her.highland.gov.uk/Monument/MHG43673