My life as a replica : St John's Cross, Iona 9781911188599, 9781911188605, 1911188607, 9781911188629, 1911188623

Table of contents :
Cover
Book title
Copyright
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Image credits
Abbreviations
Preface
The concrete and non-concrete
I Crafting lives
1 Life as a replica Sally Foster and San Jones
Replication and authenticity
Analogue replicas still matter
The St John’s Cross and its copies matter
The lives and voices of replicas
Capturing lives – objects, texts, images and people
Piecing it all together
2 Loving Iona Sally Foster and Sîan Jones
Island of crosses
Multiple communities
A ‘thick’ place
3 ‘Priceless monuments’ Sally Foster
Early antiquarian interest
New stewards, new horizons
‘History versus Mystery; Science and Art versus Faith’
Island voices
Dead or alive?
II Creating and cultivating the cross
4 Formation and reformation Sally Foster
Salvation, wounds and resurrection
Fragmentation
Antiquarian rebirth, earliest copies
Antiquarian rebirth, earliest copies
Silent witness
The Fallen Cross
5 Birth of the concrete replica ‘I can’t think of anything more worthwhile doing' Sally Foster
A slow conception
Fertile possibilities
‘Miraculous success’: an ‘authentic prototype’ for an ‘authentic replica’
Erecting the replica in situ
For the love of Iona
Material matters, first impressions
Celebrating the ‘virtually impossible’
MacLeod and the St John’s Cross
New life, new values
6 From out of the shadows? Sally Foster
Transformer
Reunited
Place in the world
The Iona brand
7 Glorious revelation: contemporary significance, values and authenticity Sally Foster and Sîan Jones
‘Loaded objects’: meanings and relationships
Place and space
Material evidence of ‘pastness’
‘Glorious revelation’
III Celebration in concrete, celebration of concrete
8 New life, new thinking Sally Foster and Sîan Jones
Rethinking authenticity and value
Heritage implications
Creating knowledge and understanding
Understanding social value and authenticity
Securing for the future
Engaging and experiencing
New lives, new stories
Appendices
1 Surviving physical remains of the St John’s Cross, its 1:1 replicas and their production
2 Archival sources
3 Breakdown of ethnographic sources
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

My life as a replica S T JOH N’S CROSS, IONA

Iona Cathedral Trustees

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My life as a replica S T JOH N ’S CROSS, IONA

S A L L Y F O S T E R with S I Â N J O N E S design and original artwork c h r i s t i n a u n w i n

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Windgather Press is an imprint of Oxbow Books Published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Oxbow Books The Old Music Hall, 106 –108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JE Published in the United States by Oxbow Books 1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083 © Windgather Press and the authors 2020 Paperback edition isbn 978 1 911188 59 9 Digital edition isbn 978 1 911188 60 5 (epub) A cip record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing. Printed in Malta by Melita Press Ltd For a complete list of Windgather titles, please contact: United Kingdom oxbow books

telephone (01865) 241249 fax (01865) 794449 email [email protected] website oxbowbooks.com United States of America oxbow books

telephone (800) 791 9354 fax (610) 853 9146 email [email protected] website casemateacademic.com/oxbow Oxbow Books is part of the Casemate Group

Cover design Christina Unwin’s artistic response to Sally Foster’s photograph of the St John’s Cross with swallow. Frontispiece Glimpses of Iona captured in 2017–19, arranged by Christina Unwin.



Back cover The St John’s Cross replica with members of the Exposagg team who had just erected it on Iona.

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This book is dedicated to three friends who shared a love of concrete and good design

John R. Scott

Ian G. Scott

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John Lawrie

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Contents Illustrations x Acknowledgements xv Image credits

xvii

Abbreviations xviii Preface xix

The concrete and non-concrete Sally Foster

1

I Crafting lives 1 Life as a replica

Sally Foster and Sîan Jones

Replication and authenticity

7

Analogue replicas still matter

11

The St John’s Cross and its copies matter

16

The lives and voices of replicas

19

Capturing lives – objects, texts, images and people

21

Piecing it all together

28

2 Loving Iona

Sally Foster and Sîan Jones

33

Island of crosses

35

Multiple communities

38

A ‘thick’ place

46

3 ‘Priceless monuments’ Sally Foster

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7

47

Early antiquarian interest

48

New stewards, new horizons

53

‘History versus Mystery; Science and Art versus Faith’

55

Island voices

60

Dead or alive ?

62

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II Creating and cultivating the cross 4 Formation and reformation

Sally Foster

67

Salvation, wounds and resurrection

68

Fragmentation

82

Antiquarian rebirth, earliest copies

86

Silent witness

96

The Fallen Cross

98



5 Birth of the concrete replica

‘I can’t think of anything more worthwhile doing’ Sally Foster

105

A slow conception

105

Fertile possibilities

110

‘Miraculous success’: an ‘authentic prototype’ for an ‘authentic replica’

111

Erecting the replica in situ

120

For the love of Iona

131

Material matters, first impressions

133

Celebrating the ‘virtually impossible’

134

MacLeod and the St John’s Cross

135

New life, new values

136

6 From out of the shadows?

Sally Foster

139

Transformer

139

Reunited

145

Place in the world

149

The Iona brand

152

7 Glorious revelation:

contemporary significance, values and authenticity Sally Foster and Sîan Jones

155

‘Loaded objects’: meanings and relationships

156

Place and space

160

Material evidence of ‘pastness’

164

‘Glorious revelation’

165

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III Celebration in concrete,

celebration of concrete 8 New life, new thinking Sally Foster and Sîan Jones

171

Rethinking authenticity and value

172

Heritage implications

173

Creating knowledge and understanding

175

Understanding social value and authenticity

177

Securing for the future

179

Engaging and experiencing

180

New lives, new stories

183

Appendices Sally Foster

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1 Surviving physical remains of the St John’s Cross, its 1:1 replicas and their production

186

2 Archival sources

190

3 Breakdown of ethnographic sources

194

Bibliography Index

195 208

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x

Illustrations Figure 1 The St John’s Cross replica, Iona.

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1 Life as a replica Figure 2 Visitors, some with audioguides, experiencing Iona Abbey around its in-situ crosses.

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Figure 3 The Cast Court at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Figure 4 Dundee’s Ward Road Library in 1911.

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Figure 5 Johanna Puisto, sculpture conservator at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Figure 6 Monument to Sir Donald Currie and Margaret Miller in Fortingall.

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Figure 7 Silver pendants made in Glasgow from the collection of Fiona MacSporran.

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Figure 8 Celtic-cross merchandise in The Iona Shop in Oban.

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Figure 9 A summary of the original St John’s Cross components and the relationships of its full-scale direct copies, indicating their current locations.

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Figure 10 Child and Classroom Assistant working with historic postcards and images of Iona Abbey during our project’s 2018 workshop in the Primary School on Iona.

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Figure 11 Murdo MacKenzie with his father’s Concrete Society 2000/2001 award for the St John’s Cross replica.

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Figure 12 Participant observation.

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Figure 13 Co-production of a digital scan, led by Dr Stuart Jeffrey, Glasgow School of Art.

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Figure 14 Children of Iona Primary School with Stuart Jeffrey and Sally Foster.

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Figure 15 Visual summary of the key biographical moments in the life of the St John’s Cross.

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2 Loving Iona Figure 16 Map of Iona identifying key sites mentioned in the text.

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Figure 17 Aerial photograph of Iona village and Abbey from south-east, showing the village and route from the modern ferry pier to the Abbey church.

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Figure 18 The fifteenth-century MacLean’s Cross.

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Figure 19 Original crosses in Iona Abbey Museum, displayed without their bases.

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Figure 20 Iona War Memorial, designed by Alexander Ritchie and unveiled in 1921.

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Figure 21 Commemorating Elizabeth Leweson-Gowes, Duchess of Argyll, this cross has a secondary inscription to her daughter Victoria.

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Figure 22 Ian G. Lindsay and Partners’ summary of the Abbey’s twentieth-century rebuild.

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Figure 23 Iona Parish Church.

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Figure 24 Peace and Adventure: The Story of Iona for Young Folk of all Ages.

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Figure 25 View of St Oran’s Chapel, Reilig Odhráin cemetery, and Abbey complex beyond.

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Figure 26 Iona’s western coastline.

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3 ‘Priceless monuments’ Figure 27 Gravestone of an unknown West Highland warrior or chieftain who was buried at the Reilig Odhráin in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.

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Figure 28: Skinner’s 1825 ‘View of the coast of Mull and the Isles of Staffa and Iona in the distance’.

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Figure 29 Skinner’s 1825 ‘St Martins & St Johns Crosses’.

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Figure 30 Skinner’s 1825 ‘Cathedral at Iona’.

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Figure 31. Skinner’s 1825 ‘Landing place at Iona’.

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Figure 32 Henry D. Graham’s 1848 –1849 drawing of the Reilig Odhráin.

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Figure 33 ‘Tombs of the Kings and Iona Cathedral’ on a Valentine’s Series postcard from about 1880.

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Figure 34 The fifteenth-century MacKinnon’s Cross moved to the unroofed St Oran’s Chapel.

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Figure 35 Ministry of Works plans from 1923 for creating a carved stones museum.

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Figure 36 George MacLeod leads a procession of worshippers to the Abbey Church.

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Figure 37 Jonquil Alpe watercolour of the Village Street.

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Figure 38 ‘Holidays in the West Highlands. A guide [Alec Ritchie] describing the tombs of the kings on Iona.

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4 Formation and reformation Figure 39 The soaring replica of the St John’s Cross.

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xii Figure 40 A conceptual map of the location of eighth-century Iona in relation to Jerusalem.

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Figure 41 Subtle differences in height exist between the existing paved stone road leading to St Columba’s Shrine and the base of the crosses.

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Figure 42 rcahms illustration of the east face of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 43 rcahms illustration of the west face of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 44 rcahms sections and plan of the base of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 45 Two possible reconstructions of the first phase of the St John’s Cross, compared to its secondary form after repairs and the insertion of the ring.

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Figure 46 This postcard from before 1955 gives a sense of lost views towards the crosses.

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Figure 47 The present-day view from inside the shrine-chapel looking towards St John’s Cross, with swallow, and Tòrr an Aba behind.

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Figure 48 Detail of Discovery Programme scan of the St John’s Cross showing possible repeated Virgin and Child motif on the lower part of the upper cross-arm.

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Figure 49 Lhuyd’s 1699 drawing of St John’s Cross.

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Figure 50 Plan of cleared shrine-chapel and area around St John’s Cross, drawn by Henry Dryden 1874 –5 and 1877.

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Figure 51 Later medieval socket-stone for a cross on the top of Tòrr an Aba.

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Figure 52 ‘No attempt has been made to present a deceptive counterfeit of the old work’ (Macalister 1927).

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Figure 53 H. D. Graham’s ‘Fragments of Cross lying in Reileag Oran – Iona – 1850’.

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Figure 54 H. D. Graham’s 1850 ‘Restored Cross. Iona from fragments fitted together’.

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Figure 55 George Washington Wilson’s ‘Remains of Ancient Crosses’, thought to date to 1867 or 1868.

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Figure 56 One of Ernest Beveridge’s photographs of carved stones stored in an enclosure within the Reilig Odhráin in 1895 with, to the rear, fragments of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 57 Aberdeen-based artist A. Gibb’s record of the shaft of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 58 Volunteers from the Iona Community carry building timbers from the jetty to the Abbey in 1950, past the reconstructed St John’s Cross.

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Figure 59 Cover of A. C. Phillip’s 1958 The Fallen Cross booklet.

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Figure 60 Dorothy Una Ratcliffe and two friends on a beach in about 1955.

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Figure 61 The St John’s Cross after its first fall in 1951, photographed in 1953.

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xiii Figure 62 The recently fallen St John’s Cross as it lay in 1957.

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Figure 63 The broken shaft of St John’s Cross in 1965, with its 1954 reconstructed base.

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5 Birth of the concrete replica Figure 64 David Francis Oliphant Russell, probably in the early 1960s.

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Figure 65 The central court of the National Museum of Ireland, as we now know it, in the 1890s, with replicas of Irish high crosses in the centre.

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Figure 66 George Mancini stands in his Edinburgh workshop in front of his completed master model for the replica of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 67 Example of engineer John R. Scott’s plans for the design of the St John’s Cross replica.

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Figure 68 Example of engineer John R. Scott’s plans for the internal skeleton of the St John’s Cross replica.

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Figure 69 Jackie Drysdale, David Borthwick and a colleague prepare a plaster casing for the cross-head to receive the gelatine mould.

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Figure 70. Jackie Drysdale and an unidentified Borthwick employee create the gelatine mould for the St John’s Cross replica.

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Figure 71 The cast concrete shaft lies alongside its gelatine mould.

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Figure 72 Stewart Cruden’s excavations of the base of the St John’s Cross in 1970.

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Figure 73 John Lawrie supervises the lowering of the concrete cross-head of the St John’s Cross replica onto its shaft in Borthwick’s Yard, Edinburgh.

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Figure 74 Topping-out ceremony of the replica cross.

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Figure 75 A primary school pupil’s storyline for the events leading to the erection of the St John’s Cross replica on Iona.

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Figure 76 The replica of the St John’s Cross arrives in the hold of the puffer, on top of the island’s coal supply.

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6 From out of the shadows?

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Figure 77 rcahms reconstruction of how the ring quadrants were inserted into the composite cross-head of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 78 Cross-sections of St John’s Cross with a key to the evidence for its eighthcentury damage and repair.

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Figure 79 The east face of St John’s Cross, as mounted in the Iona Abbey Museum in 1990.

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Figure 80 Unveiling of the reconstructed St John’s Cross in 1990, showing its west face.

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xiv Figure 81 Delegates to the 2012 Historic Scotland Iona Research Seminar.

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Figure 82 The approach to Iona Abbey along its early medieval paved road.

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Figure 83 Stone types were chosen for their material qualities, such as this wonderfully shimmery garnet-mica-schist made into a cross-slab for Iona.

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Figure 84 Scan of the south side of St John’s Cross, to show its fractures, the present-day supporting structure, and the scars of previous repairs.

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7 Glorious revelation Figure 85 Detail of the head of the St John’s Cross replica.

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Figure 86 In the Aosdàna shop on Iona visitors linger when looking for replica and modern jewellery to take home that will evoke Iona’s special qualities.

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Figure 87 A pupil’s perspective of the crosses on Iona.

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Figure 88 An Italian tourist kneels at St Martin’s Cross.

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Figure 89 St Martin’s and St Matthew’s Crosses, and the St John’s Cross replica from the roof of the Abbey, with natural outcrop Tòrr an Aba behind.

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Figure 90 The midsummer shadow of the St John’s Cross replica on St Columba’s Shrine.

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Figure 91 Engineer John R. Scott, conservator Tam Day, foreman plasterer Jackie Drysdale and artist John Lawrie stand in front of the replica in Edinburgh.

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Figure 92 Artwork about the replica’s story produced by a young islander.

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Figure 93 Artwork about the replica produced by a young islander.

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8 New life, new thinking Figure 94 Summary of the heritage cycle.

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Figure 95 A child’s perspective on the replica story as history.

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Figure 96 Just erected on Iona in June 1970, the Exposagg team from Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd stand in front of the replica of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 97 Touching and feeling the concrete replica.

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Acknowledgements We warmly thank our many anonymous interviewees on and off Iona. On Iona we thank the residents of Iona, Iona Abbey staff and Iona Community. Beyond the permissions obtained for the ethnographic work, we have done our utmost to seek formal clearance for sources used in this publication, whether archives, which include personal correspondence, or images. If we missed anything or you can fill a gap in our contacts, please email [email protected] and we will seek to remedy this in future publications. The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Historic Environment Scotland, Iona Cathedral Trustees and Strathmartine Trust funded our research and publication costs. For talking to us and sharing personal archives that evidence events related to the creation of the 1970 replica, rcahms survey and 1990 reconstruction, we particularly thank Ian Fisher, Stephen Gordon, Adrian Lawrie, John Lawrie, Arthur MacGregor, Murdo MacKenzie (with Lorraine Prentice and Grace MacKenzie), John Renshaw and Ian G. Scott. Sally was often a ‘persistent correspondent’ and you were very patient indeed. Dario Sinfoniani of Communications, Media and Culture at the University of Stirling facilitated the use of interns Josefin Dahlin, Jodie Davidones and Calum McIntosh to film Murdo MacKenzie for YouTube (MacKenzie and Foster 2018), and we must of course thank Murdo MacKenzie for allowing us to record an interview of him talking to his cine film. For feedback on all or part of draft texts but no responsibility for the outcome, we owe a big debt to: reviewers Neil Curtis (University of Aberdeen) and E. Mairi MacArthur; Ewan Campbell (University of Glasgow); Ian Fisher; Adrian and John Lawrie; Rod McCullagh; John Renshaw; and Ian G. Scott. For access to collections, curated archives and unpublished institutional resources, we are grateful to the expert staff of the following: Aberdeen Art Gallery; Glasgow School of Arts Archives and Collections; Glasgow Life; Historic Environment Scotland (notably the National Record of the Historic Environment); National Museums Scotland; National Records of Scotland; University of St Andrews University Special Collections. Dr Iain Fraser of Historic Environment Scotland deserves a special mention for persevering to successfully track down uncatalogued H. D. Graham archives that Ian Fisher brought to Foster’s attention. The Russell family kindly gave permission, per Manuscript Archivist Maia Sheridan, to closed family archives in the St Andrews University Special Collections. For permission from families and executors to use personal sources in archives we are also grateful to Cecilia Bishop, Fiona Glass (and her sister Isabelle), John Laurie, Maxwell MacLeod, David Richardson, Sue Rushworth and Roy Scott. For access to/permission to use unpublished research, we thank: Adrián Maldonado (National Museums Scotland); Colleen Thomas (Royal Irish Academy Charlemont Scholar 2018); Historic Environment Scotland; Krittika Bhattacharjee (University of Edinburgh); Ewan Campbell, Katherine Forysth (University of Glasgow); Katie Mills (University of Manchester). Thomas Clancy and Gilbert

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Márkus gave permission to reproduce extracts from their translations of early medieval literature (Clancy 1998; Clancy & Márkus 1995). For responding to specific queries including picture research, or proffering advice, those we wish to thank include: Bob Abel; Alvie and Insch church (Bill Steele); Anderson Strathern (Beth Cameron); Aosdàna (Mhairi Killin); Argyll and Bute Council (Kim de Buiteléir); Malcolm Bangor-Jones; David Breeze; British Library (Janet Portman); Concrete Society (Edwin Trout); Morag Cross; Discovery Programme (Michael Ann Bevivino, Anthony Corns, Rob Shaw); Dundee Central Library (Erin Farley, Maureen Hood); East Lothian Archive and Local History Service (Hanita Ritchie); Exmoor Society; Historic Environment Scotland (Duncan Ainslie, Judith Anderson, Michelle Andersson, Philip Brooks, Deirdre Cameron, Lorna Ewan, Stephen Gordon; Lynsey Haworth, Rebecca Jones, Elizabeth McCrone, Mark McKillan, Colin Muir, John Raven, Lisa Robshaw, Beth Spence, the staff in the Search Room); Tasha Gefreh; Iona Cathedral Trust (Jennifer Hamilton, Mhairi Killin, Anne Steele); Iona Community (Margaret Campbell; Peter Macdonald); Iona Heritage Centre; Killearn Trust (Gill Smith); Leeds University Library Special Collections and Galleries (Joanne Fitton, Xiao Lu, Jen Povey, Remi Turner); Live Argyll (Rory Crutchfield, Eleanor McKay); Fiona MacSporran; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (Beth Hodgett); National Library of Wales (Emyr Evans); National Museum of Ireland (Clare McNamara); National Museums Scotland (Alice Blackwell, Martin Goldberg, Sarah Laurenson); National Trust for Scotland (Derek Alexander, Stephen Small); Pop Up Designs (Andrew Cox); Cecilia and Judy Russell; Scottish Poetry Library (Emily Prince); Trinity College Dublin (Roger Stalley); University of Aberdeen Special Collections (Kim Downie); University College London (David V. Clarke); University of Dundee (Murdo MacDonald); University of Edinburgh (Heather Pulliam); University of Glasgow (Nyree Finlay); University of Stirling (Qian Gao, Kevin Macneil, Phia Steyn); Wild Goose Publications (Sandra Kramer); Peter Yeoman. For making our fieldwork on Iona possible, we particularly thank Richard Strachan, Jane Martin and their Historic Environment Scotland colleagues. Stephen Glen Lee and Lynda Maccallum of Iona Primary School, and parents of pupils, enabled us to work with class P5–P7 in February 2018. We loved the children’s original artwork and we are very pleased to be able to reproduce some of this here. The Iona Heritage Centre Café deserves a special mention for its delicious daily sustenance. On a personal note, Sally would like to acknowledge her ex-Historic Scotland colleagues for their exceptional generosity and open-ness, continuing a long institutional tradition of critical reflection on working practices. ‘Holidays’ to Iona with Jonquil Alpe and Lucy Williams generated welcome new perspectives. Sally also thanks the University of Stirling and her supportive colleagues for the six-month Research Leave in 2018 that facilitated the core of this work. Last but absolutely not least, Sally thanks Siân for her mentorship throughout, particularly in relation to the ethnographic work.

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Siân would like to give special thanks to Sally; for introducing her to the fascinating case of the St John’s Cross replica and for carrying the lion’s share of the work, not least during a period of ill-health in 2018–19. This extends a long-standing tradition of working together on the biographies of early medieval sculptured stones! For their considerable and extended support, we thank our partners, Rod McCullagh and Stuart Jeffrey (Glasgow School of Art); they have both offered intellectual inspiration and practical support at all stages of the project. Stuart co-designed and delivered the digital focus group and school workshop, and undertook several interviews; Rod assisted with the school workshop. Sally and Chris thank the publication team at Windgather/Oxbow and Casemate Publishers (Julie Gardiner, Mette Bundgaard and Declan Ingram).

Image credits Front cover Artwork Christina Unwin, original photo Sally Foster. Back cover, 96 Murdo MacKenzie. © Courtesy of hes (J. R. Scott Collection). Frontispiece Jonquil Alpe, Sally Foster, Siân Jones. Dedication Pauline Scott © Courtesy of hes, Sally Foster, Ian G. Scott. 1, 14 Rod McCullagh. 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 39, 41, 47, 51, 82, 83, 85, 86, 89, 90, 97 Sally Foster. 4 Libraries, Leisure and Culture Dundee. 7 Fiona MacSporran. 9 Artwork Christina Unwin, photographic details Sally Foster, GSofASimVis,

Discovery Programme and © Courtesy of hes (J. R. Scott collection).

15 Artwork Christina Unwin, photographic details John Renshaw, © Crown

copyright: hes and Sally Foster. 16 Artwork Christina Unwin, photographic details Sally Foster. 17, 27, 42, 43, 44, 63, 72, 77, 79, 81 © Crown copyright: hes. 22, 35 © Courtesy of hes (Iona Cathedral Trustees Collection). 28, 29, 30, 31 © The British Library Board (ms 33687 f204r, 2f30r, f232r, f233r). 32, 54, 55 © Courtesy of hes (copied from Henry Graham Album, held at hes Archives). 33 Photographer unknown. 34 © Courtesy of hes (George Washington Wilson). 36 Iona Community, enhanced by Sandra Kramer. © Courtesy of hes (Iona Cathedral Trustees Collection). 37 Jonquil Alpe. 38, 57 National Library of Scotland, used under the Creative Commons Attribution (cc by ) 4.0 licence. 40 Christina Unwin, a informed by O’Loughlin 1997 figs 3–4, b and c by Campbell & Maldonado 2020 forthcoming.

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45 Christina Unwin, developed from rcahms 1982. 46 George Allan, Iona Community. 48, 84 Discovery Programme. 49 © The British Library Board (Stowe ms 1024, f137r). 50 © Courtesy of hes (Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Collection). 52 Donald B. McCulloch, by permission of E. Mairi MacArthur. 55 University of Aberdeen gb 0231 ms 3792/2921. 56 © Courtesy of hes (Erskine Beveridge Collection). 58 Iona Community. 59, 61, 62 Estate of A. C. Phillips. 60 Unknown, Special Collections, Leeds University Library. 64 Photographer as signed, the Russell family. 65 National Museum of Ireland. 66 Drummond Young. © Courtesy of hes (Iona Cathedral Trustees Collection). 67, 68, 74, 76 © Courtesy of hes (J. R. Scott Collection). 69, 70, 71 John Lawrie. © Courtesy of hes (J. R. Scott Collection). 73, 91 Arthur MacGregor. © Courtesy of hes (J. R. Scott Collection). 75, 87, 92, 93, 95 Iona Primary School P5–7 Spring 2018, permission of parents. 78 Christina Unwin, developed from rcahms 1982. 80 John Renshaw. 88 Simon Villette. 94 Sally Foster after Thurley 2005.

Abbreviations amb bl

Ancient Monuments Board (‘the Board’) British Library GSofASimVis Glasgow School of Art School of Simulisation and Visualisation hes Historic Environment Scotland icomos International Council on Monuments and Sites ict Iona Cathedral Trust (‘the Trustees’) mow Ministry of Works (‘the Ministry’) nmi National Museum of Ireland nrhe National Records of the Historic Environment (part of hes) nrs National Records of Scotland pic Property in Care rcahms Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (‘the Commission’) sdd Scottish Development Department st asc University of St Andrews Special Collections unesco United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization V&A Victoria and Albert Museum (former South Kensington Museum)

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Preface This book has a long genesis. Researching for it, Foster found herself revisiting government files that she first consulted in 2000 (Foster 2001). The seeds of the present project were sown in April 2012 when Foster attended the Iona Conference organised by Historic Scotland to inform their thinking about their planned reinterpretation of the site and museum. She made the case for more biographical approaches to the lives of the carved stones and new ways of thinking about their authenticity, illustrating this with the potential of the St John’s Cross replica to enable visitors to engage with the enduring lives of Iona’s carved stones. Recognising the potential of ethnographic research, Foster and Jones teamed up in 2015, by then colleagues at Stirling University. In 2016, we secured research funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh Small Research Grants and later Historic Environment Scotland (cnr-g/pic076/17/1 and cnr-g/pic076/19/1), per Richard Strachan. This enabled us to undertake ethnographic fieldwork to explore the contemporary authenticity and value of historic replicas through a study of the St John’s Cross. Drawing on the accord methodology, Stuart Jeffrey also joined us to deliver a community 3d-modelling workshop on Iona, a specific intervention which provided a basis for further qualitative research. During the workshop participants helped to produce a photogrammetric model of the St John’s Cross replica which can be viewed on Sketchfab (see below). During Sian’s ill-health, Stuart also delivered the Iona Primary School workshop with Sally in March 2018. Meanwhile, Foster continued to work in an interdisciplinary way researching extensive archival and other primary sources to provide a temporal perspective on the ways in which the meaning of the St John’s Cross and its replica(s) have changed over twelve centuries. The cores of Chapters 7 and 8, and elements of Chapter 2, were first published in International Journal of Heritage Studies and Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites (Foster & Jones 2019a; 2019b). We are grateful to the Editors and publisher, Taylor and Francis https://www.tandfonline.com/, for permission to reuse this material. We have sought to offer you various options to navigate our craft. The book is deliberately highly visual, and we are very grateful to Chris Unwin for her creative input. You may simply enjoy the pictures and their captions to get a feel for the life of the St John’s Cross and place through time. If you search the free online Sketchfab platform you can find and explore the St John’s Cross from all angles, whether the stone original or concrete replica https://sketchfab.com/ (models by the Discovery Programme and GSofASimVis respectively). Using Canmore and Pastmap you will find more about Scottish sites we mention (https://canmore.org.uk/ and https://pastmap.org.uk/ ). Although of course there is no substitute for visiting, seeing – having ‘touching’ encounters – we hope that some sense of the people and their stories will emerge. We enjoyed our Iona journey and hope you do too.

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Figure 1 The St John’s Cross replica, Iona.

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The concrete and non-concrete He said, look, take your arm and feel in between these stones and grab a handful, pull them out. I pulled out this powdered mortar with snail shells in it, sea snail, and he said the last person to have seen that will have been a 13th-century stonemason. Just such an awesome idea … I’ve kept those pieces. They’re in little envelopes at home. Because you can still see the shells. Robin

Robin, a regular visitor to the Scottish island of Iona, had just been chatting to one of the stonemasons engaged in some repointing work at the Abbey when he was invited to do something very exclusive, very intimate, very affective. With his fingers he grasped, felt and met the past, deep in the historic core of the building.1 He went on to give this gritty mortar a new life and meaning. Back home, he treasures envelopes of shells. They reflect and renew his personal relationship with Iona, a place already very special to him. Yes, these are ancient shells he can gaze at and revere between his fingers, but their authenticity is founded on the networks of relationships between people, places and things that they embody, his experience of Iona. In his privileged encounter, Robin witnessed the passion and craft of the modern mason. He also spawned links to thirteenth-century forebears who had collected raw materials, made lime, worked stone and built the Abbey. Those connections, and his own ever-emerging relationship with the special place that is Iona, have travelled home with him and live in and through those shells. This is not a book about mortar or shells, but it is about inviting new ways of thinking about authenticity, value and significance. It is about recognising and understanding tangible and intangible values, and the multiple lives and changing meanings that an object can have through time. The focus of enquiry is replicas of historic monuments, often contentious things found across the world (Lowenthal 1995, 290–5; Mersmann 2017, 245–56). Surprisingly, perhaps, there has been little systematic study of how they ‘work’ in practice at places of historic interest, often tourist destinations, where replication is often thought to make ‘best sense’ as some kind of substitute for the original (James 2016, 521). This is one of the first qualitative social studies of such historic replicas, and the first in-depth cultural biography to give primacy to the life of a replica – a 1970 concrete replica of the iconic St John’s Cross, Iona (Fig. 1). Our research shows how replicas can acquire authenticity. It unravels the part that social relations, craft practices, creativity, place and materiality play in the production and negotiation of their authenticity. Yet, underlying stories of human creativity, skill and craftsmanship are rendered invisible when replicas are treated as mere surrogates for a missing ‘original’. Challenging the traditional precepts

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2 My life as a replica

that seek authenticity in qualities intrinsic to original historic objects, we will show how replicas are important objects in their own right; they acquire value, authenticity and aura. The life of a replica generates networks of relationships between people, places and things, including the original historic object, and authenticity is founded on what these relationships embody. Authenticity is also founded on the dynamic material qualities of the objects. The cultural biographies of replicas, and the ‘felt’ relationships associated with them, play a key role in the generation and negotiation of authenticity while, at the same time, informing the authenticity and value of their historic counterparts through the ‘composite biographies’ that are produced (Foster & Curtis 2016). We argue that replicas can ‘work’ for us if we let them, particularly if clues are available about their makers’ passion, creativity and craft. They have their own creative, human histories, biographies that people can connect with. We hope to demonstrate that they have ‘concrete’ and ‘non-concrete’ values. This book also tells important new stories about the much-loved, worldrenowned island of Iona, and its internationally significant carved stones. Iona’s extensively-copied, iconic St John’s Cross is our case study. In 1970 a concrete replica was erected in situ to replace the original. This had fallen for at least the fourth time in its life in 1957. We expose and explore, for the first time, the in-depth life of this replica, in relation to the life of the original and lives of its many other copies. The St John’s Cross is universally acknowledged to be an artistic and technical masterpiece, a composite monument thought to be the progenitor of the ringed ‘Celtic’ cross. Erected in the mid-eighth century ad, it stands like a sentinel outside the entrance to an intimate stone building enclosing St Columba’s place of burial. The cross and shrine-chapel were probably erected as part of a highly innovative programme of architectural and artistic works to enhance the religious experience of pilgrims to St Columba’s grave. St Columba is the best known of the early medieval saints who introduced Christianity to Scotland. Therefore, the St John’s Cross has always been at the heart of the Iona experience, of pilgrimage to and around Scotland, indeed around western Europe. The St John’s Cross is arguably best known through its copies, not least the 1970 replica. But, the story of the concrete replica is scarcely known and largely untold. Turning half a century in age in 2020, it is therefore timely to investigate the authenticity, value and significance of this historic replica, and to consider the wider implications of our findings for little understood historic replicas at heritage places. We already know that historic sculptured stones can play an extremely important role in contemporary place-making and defining identities. They can elicit, vocalise and come to represent competing values (Foster 2001; McEnchroe Williams 2001; Jones 2004; Macdonald 2013, 131). Causes célèbre include the treatment meted out to the Afghani Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001, and the international responses that followed (Mersmann 2017, 245–56). They do this because in certain contexts they do not represent ‘themselves’ but symbolise the concerns of individuals and communities in a metaphorical way

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The concrete and non-concrete 3

(cf. Bold & Pickard 2013, 109). With its rich fragmented stories, another classic example is the case of the Hilton of Cadboll monument, an internationally significant early medieval cross-slab derived from Easter Ross, Scotland. A major ethnographic study by one of us (Jones 2004; 2005; 2011), demonstrated how this fragmented monument is involved in memory-work and place-making in the tiny village of Hilton, as well as the politics of who ‘belongs’, being used in the negotiation of community boundaries. Importantly, this research also revealed the ways in which the monument is symbolically conceived as an ancient ‘living’ member of the community, and how its material fragmentation and displacement provide a metaphor for the Highland Clearances, as well as a means to resist perceived marginalisation and decline. The cultural biography that we subsequently wrote together (Foster & Jones 2008) also sheds light on other networks of power, authority and identity surrounding the monument, not least associated with the events of 1921 when part of the cross-slab was removed to London and then returned to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh amid patriotic protests, consolidating the significance of the monument as a national icon. The propensity of carved and sculptured stones to become fragmented and displaced through a variety of processes, ranging from deliberate iconoclasm to forms of acquisition and appropriation, contributes to their symbolic and metaphoric power. As Foster (2001; 2010) has discussed, it also creates tensions around their protection and conservation, as they shift ambiguously between the status of monument and portable object, adding further complexities to their biographies, not uncommonly seeding forms of replication along the way. Both the Bamyan Buddhas and the Hilton of Cadboll cross-slab have been caught up in controversial debates about their conservation and the role of replication and/ or reconstruction. However, in studies of these monuments, as in many other cases, replicas frequently remain in the ‘wings’, whereas we place the St John’s Cross replica centre stage. The book has three sections. In Crafting lives, we seek to convey a sense of how and why we have written such a book, one in which we think it is important that a replica ‘speaks’. Chapter 1 discusses how lives of objects can be constructed. We justify our approach, methodologies and choice of subject in terms of the latest thinking on replicas in heritage and museum contexts. Chapter 2 reveals the ways in which Iona is a particularly complex and special place, in material and social terms. Famously described as a ‘thin’ place, we show that it is ‘thick’ from an ethnographic and temporal perspective. Chapter 3 offers a temporal perspective on the values of Iona’s multiple communities, illustrating the agency and symbolism of the island’s carved stones in this regard. Creating and cultivating the cross explores the 1200-year-plus cultural biography of the St John’s Cross, drawing on extensive primary research. Chapter 4 covers the life of the cross from its creation to 1957, when the cross fell for the last time. Chapter 5 is about the long gestation of the concrete replica and how it came to be born, while Chapter 6 spans the period from the 1970s to 2016. Chapter 7

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4 My life as a replica

presents the findings of our ethnographic research, with an emphasis on what they tell us about contemporary authenticity and value. Celebration in concrete, celebration of concrete invites new thinking about replicas. Having examined the role of the St John’s Cross replica in the production and negotiation of authenticity and value, we explore the implications for those who look after historic replicas, or who continue to create them. In concluding, we argue that, if we let them, replicas can play an important part in creating new heritage futures that are: collaborative, dialogical and interactive, [involving] a material-discursive process in which past and future arise out of dialogue and encounter between multiple embodied subjects in (and with) the present (Harrison 2018, 27). 1 It

should be noted here that we do not seek to encourage this practice in other contexts. The mortar component of masonry buildings needs periodic renewal and in this instance the stonemason was in the process of raking out the decaying mortar and replacing it with a new hydraulic lime mix to maintain the building. In the context of buildings and monuments in the care of Historic Environment Scotland, this practice in itself is subject to complex negotiations surrounding authenticity. As Jones & Yarrow (2013) show in their research with stonemasons at Glasgow Cathedral, these encompass materiality and craft traditions, but ultimately also rest on the networks of relations – both social and material – involved.

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Crafting lives

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1 Life as a replica ‘They are us, we are them’: 1 there is such a lot of prejudice to overcome when you are a replica St John’s Cross

Why did you pick up this book? That Iona is special is in no doubt, but people so often have issues with things they understand to be ‘replicas’, not least concrete ones. With the very idea often so off-putting, we took a risk even using the ‘r’ word in our title. This chapter explains and justifies the focus on replicas, particularly this one, and it addresses the bold claim that a replica can ‘speak’. We explore how a replica can have a life and you will be introduced to the interdisciplinary way we have proceeded to elucidate its cultural biography and explore issues of authenticity and value.

Replication and authenticity First, what do we mean by a replica? Copying is hardly a novel trait (e.g. Fong 1962; Wood 2008; Knappett 2011, 78–82; Shen 2018), but in the West it is the nineteenth century that is seen as the age of reproduction (Orvell 1989). In the twenty-first century we are now thoroughly immersed in copies of things, whether we know it or not and whether we care or not. Replicas, reproductions, facsimiles, fabrications, fakes, simulacra, hyperreality and pastiche are omnipresent in our lives, not least when we step out of our ‘normal’ routine to visit a tourist attraction and as we leave packing our bags with souvenirs (Eco 1987, 3–59; Stewart 1993; Wharton 2006, 189–232; Graburn et al. 2019). Different scales, contexts and definitions abound. The focus of this study is copies made in the context of a museum collection or heritage site where the intention was to make as exact a copy as possible, although our work also incorporates scaled-down replicas of our subject, such as jewellery, and other reproductions and images. The term ‘replica’ had a host of positive meanings in the nineteenth century, but it was applied in very different contexts to today, including the replication by artists of their paintings (Codell & Hughes 2018a). At this time ‘reproduction’, ‘facsimile’, ‘copy’ or ‘model’ were more likely to be applied to the sorts of objects that we are focusing on, but these words elided diverse responses to the accuracy or scale of reproduction (Kelly 2013a). Application of the term ‘replica’ to these copies appeared at the turn of the twentieth century. Attitudes to replicas in the decorative arts changed when the so-called ‘cult of the original’ emerged. The ‘cult of the original’ defined the ‘true’ nature of objects in relation to fabric, origins and provenance, with ‘real’ meaning ‘original’.

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8 My life as a replica

‘By contrast ‘replica’ acquired pejorative overtones and these have stuck (e.g. Plunkett 1906; Codell & Hughes 2018a). In their professional journals, curators had already debated the use and display of reproductions in fine-art museums by the turn of the twentieth century. A classic example is the 1905 ‘Battle of the Casts’ when leading curators at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston bitterly argued about whether to keep and display their plaster casts, and there were personal consequences of the fallout (Whitehill 1970; Gilman 1910). In art-historical circles replicas came to be perceived as lacking original substance, ‘aura’, creative and innovative qualities, and this view was highly influential and permeated society more widely (P. Philpott cited in Jokilehto 2006, 9). Being a ‘copy’ is still not generally deemed to be a compliment although, as the saying goes, ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’, and someone has chosen the object of their attentions (Latour & Lowe 2011, 279). Distrust of replicas is particularly amplified in modern international conservation charters that define replication as making an exact copy, but in a way that is deemed intrinsically deceptive because the new work is not readily distinguishable from the original and is therefore seen as a potential threat to its historic counterpart (Bell 1997, 25; Cameron 2007; Bold & Pickard 2013). The creators of the 1970 St John’s Cross proudly referred to it as a replica and, like its nineteenth-century ancestors, this copy was never intended to deceive – on the contrary, in fact. But it stands in a heritage-site context where this terminology is interpreted in a very specific, often negative, way, informed by the concept of authenticity. Authenticity matters because, as a rule, people do not value things that in their eyes are not authentic. In heritage contexts, authenticity is seen as ‘the essential qualifying factor concerning values’, the positive characteristics that we attribute to things (icomos 1994). In the ‘Western’ conservation tradition authenticity has been primarily associated with the original historic things; an intrinsic quality, which by the mid-twentieth century was firmly linked to material fabric and remains in many aspects of heritage management and conservation (Pye 2001; Cameron 2007, 52–3; Jones 2010; Muñoz-Viñas 2011). This understanding of authenticity is central to foundational conservation documents, such as the Venice Charter (1964) and the unesco World Heritage Convention (1972), although the latter extends qualifying criteria of authenticity to include original function and setting alongside fabric. Over the last two to three decades there has been growing recognition of the culturally constructed and relative nature of authenticity (e.g. Lowenthal 1995, 134; Holtorf & Schadla-Hall 1999; Lindholm 2008). Partly driven by academic critiques, this shift has also emerged in response to concern that a materialist approach to authenticity fails to accommodate nonWestern forms of heritage, resulting in the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity. Post-Nara a host of non-Western countries, particularly in Asia, have developed national icomos documents, which emphasise culturally and regionally-specific approaches to authenticity. Indeed, Winter (2014) has argued that an opposition between ‘Asian’ and ‘Western’ approaches to heritage is emerging as a new orthodoxy, where the former is seen to place greater weight on the intangible, the spiritual, and associated practices of replication embedded in authentic

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Figure 2 Visitors,

some with audioguides, experiencing Iona Abbey around its in-situ crosses. From left to right St John’s (replica of mid-eighth-century original in original base), St Matthew’s (empty base, ninth century) and St Martin’s (eighthcentury).

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craft traditions. Nevertheless, a materialist approach to authenticity remains firmly embedded in authorised heritage discourses (Smith 2006), not least in the ongoing designation of World Heritage Sites, the arena that ‘has become the most important clearinghouse for and disseminator of conservation discourses, policies, and practices, particularly for cultural heritage’ (Brumann 2017, 270). Even in heritage charters that place more emphasis on a values-based approach, such as the Burra Charter (Australia icomos, 1979 revised 2013), authenticity still informs the principles and assumptions through the emphasis on historic fabric (see Waterton et al.’s 2006 analysis of the 1999 revision of the Charter). In academic heritage studies, in contrast, a constructivist approach now prevails, which is somewhat at odds with the materialist approaches that continue to inform heritage practices in many spheres (Myrberg 2004; Jones 2009; 2010, 184–16; Digan 2015; Silverman 2015, 83–4). As Silverman puts it in her overview of academic research, ‘contemporary authenticity is the new authenticity’ (Silverman 2015, 84) and this has given rise to a plethora of studies focusing on the present-day contexts in which authenticity is constructed and manipulated for social, economic and political purposes. A significant proportion of the related research has focused on the place of authenticity in the invention of tradition, the performances associated with festivals and pilgrimage, diaspora studies and identity politics (Silverman 2015, 80–2). Whereas, the primary emphasis in museum, heritage and tourism scholarship is now on understanding ‘the nature of engagement and experience [of visitors] rather than a quest for authenticity in objects themselves construed as heritage’ (Silverman 2015, 77) (Fig. 2).

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10 My life as a replica

Notwithstanding the importance of these trends in terms of our wider research context, this study is particularly informed by recent research highlighting the importance of both the material and the social. In the context of digital 3d modelling, Jeffrey refers to the ‘thrill of proximity’ where the ‘chain of proximity’, the links to the original, also matters (Jeffrey 2015, 147; 2018, 51). The material dimension is also important (Graves-Brown et al. 2013), with patina, ageing and physical decay contributing to what Holtorf (2013) refers to as a sense of ‘pastness’. These in turn relate to the networks of relations between objects, people and places that inform the experience and negotiation of authenticity (Jones 2008; 2010; 2016; Jones & Yarrow 2013). The ways in which historic objects embody networks of relationships and the qualities that express this, involves both the tangible and the intangible (Jones 2010, 181, 189–90). Put simply, if a person can ‘connect’ in some way to the biography of the thing, the relationship that is generated contributes to the object’s ‘aura’ or authenticity. As we show in this study, a significant component is the way we ‘connect’ through affect, producing a ‘touching’ encounter where the senses and emotions respond in some positive, but inexpressible, way. What does all this mean for the traditional association of authenticity with original historic objects, casting replicas in a secondary position as their ultimately inauthentic counterparts, requiring a clear and careful separation (Fyfe 2004)? Recent research, including our own, explores the ways in which replicas accrue value and can be perceived as authentic. It argues that replicas are things in their own right, and both analogue (physical) and digital replicas acquire their own cultural biographies while simultaneously contributing to the social lives of their original counterparts (early examples of this argument include Cameron & Kenderdine 2007, 67; Foster & Jones 2008, 266–9). The much-photographed, multiple copies of Michelangelo’s David in Florence spring to mind (e.g. Eco 1987, 30; Bernhard & Duccio 2019, 16). Since 1910, when a copy was first made to replace the relocated original, visitors have knowingly admired both the original and replica. Latour and Lowe (2011) posit ‘migration’ of aura from the original to the replica, and that replicas can even add originality. Building on other ideas in Latour and Lowe’s influential paper, a case has been made by one of us for exploring the ‘composite biographies’ of both the original and its replicas to illuminate the specific meanings arising from how things are made and consumed, and the networks of related object, places and people – individuals and organisations (Foster et al. 2014; Foster & Curtis 2016; Foster 2018). These cultural biographies and the ‘felt relationships’ associated with them, play a key role in the generation of authenticity, while simultaneously informing the authenticity and value of their historic counterparts through the ‘composite biographies’ produced. In turn, Jones et al. (2017, 17) have shown how, in the context of community co-production of 3d digital models, such virtual copies can also ‘become part of the trajectory of [the] original and its continually rewritten biography’, mutually reproducing the authenticity and value of both. Our research on the St John’s Cross replica provides categorical support for

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Life as a replica 11

emerging arguments about the importance of production, creativity and craft in generating authenticity at key moments in the story of a replica, whether it be physical or digital (Cameron & Kenderdine 2007, 55, 60, 67; Jeffrey 2015; Jones et al. 2017; Latour & Lowe 2011). We argue that there is still the need to better understand replicas themselves because this has repercussions for the application of intangible values and changing understandings of authenticity in global heritage contexts. Authenticity shapes values, and values inform understandings of significance that, in a post-Burra Charter world, underpin many heritage and museum policies and practices. Wellevidenced case studies are necessary to query ‘quasi-monolithic understandings of authenticity’ that assume replicas have little or no value, and enable us to understand how to give the public the authentic heritage experiences they seek, whether at World Heritage Sites or elsewhere (Labadi 2010, 81; Holtorf 2005, 129). A greater understanding of how replicas ‘work’ can also help to inform ethical and practical responses to post-conflict reconstructions of heritage sites in places such as Afghanistan and Syria (Kamash 2017, 611–14; Kenderdine 2018b), as well as after conflagration and natural disasters. Writing this, debates about how to reconstruct Glasgow School of Art, or Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, spring immediately to mind. In these challenging times, the world more than ever needs a way ‘to validate “the copy”’ (Kenderdine 2018a, xii). We also need global and local approaches that allow for cultural specifics and relativities in relation to copying, often polarised as ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ perspectives (icomos 1994, §11; Lowenthal 1995, 134; Mersmann 2017).

Analogue replicas still matter Physical replication is not going to go away. In a digital world, analogue replicas matter because they continue to play a significant role at contemporary museums and heritage sites. French and Spanish Palaeolithic caves are classic heritage-site examples (Duval et al. 2019). As the 2018 Staffordshire Anglo-Saxon helmet illustrates, museums still have a desire to replicate and reconstruct objects. Replicas are often a very important dimension of institutional histories and collections, whether the replicas survive or not. We have only to think of the part that collections of plaster casts of predominantly Classical, later medieval, Renaissance and contemporary sculpture played in museums, art galleries and art schools from the mid-nineteenth century. The most famous survivor of this is the Cast Courts at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London (Fig. 3). This is the tip of a nineteenth- and early twentieth-century iceberg of production and circulation of replicas that was encouraged, at European princely and state-level no less (e.g. Wade 2019, 113). In 1867, fifteen royal attendees of the Paris Exposition agreed to promote and facilitate the systematic acquisition and exchange of replicas of objects between countries and their institutions (Great Britain and Ireland, Prussia, Hesse, Saxony, France, Belgium, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Italy, Austria and Denmark).

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12 My life as a replica

Figure 3 The Cast

Court at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, opened in 1873, reopened after refurbishment in 2018.

Existing scholarship has largely focused on copies of European sculpture, omitting the colonial angles (Falser 2017). Until recently, it also overlooked copies of early medieval material from Britain and Ireland, subjects that in the long nineteenth century were eclipsed by a medievalism that focused on the European Gothic (Williams 2012, 70). These native Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Manx and sometimes English contemporaries of the St John’s Cross were often swept together under the label of ‘Celtic’ (Ó Floinn 2012; Foster 2013; 2015; McCormick 2013) (Figs 4 & 65). Reproduction of this body of Insular sculpture and metalwork reflected emerging contemporary scholarship that had led to

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Figure 4 Dundee’s

Ward Road Library in 1911, with casts of early medieval monuments at the rear.

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the first academic overviews. The carved stones were now ‘on the map’. That the copying of this material emerged in the ‘provinces’, little circulating from or to England, let alone the rest of the world, speaks volumes for the context and diverse ways in which Insular national and regional identities were being created towards the end of the British Empire (e.g. Pittock 1999). In Scotland, the antiquarian context was the decades leading to the 1903 publication of The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland (Allen & Anderson 1903). In the ambit of the South Kensington system promulgated by what is now the V&A in London, replicas were generated for observation, education, handling, documentation, presentation, and art training, not least as part of a concerted effort to improve the quality of industrial design and the aesthetic choices of nations through the advocacy of universal principles of art (Burton 2002). Beyond this, for example in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, wider motivations included the value of copies as research tools, created and circulated by antiquarians for use at meetings and display in their museums (e.g. Evans 2000; Foster forthcoming).

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14 My life as a replica

Despite this nineteenth-century popularity, traditional attitudes to authenticity meant replicas subsequently had chequered histories and mixed fates. This was particularly the case in museums that had large collections of what could be bulky and fragile copies. Many museums destroyed their historic replicas: informed by modernist ideas about authenticity, and the ‘cult of the original’, they purged their galleries and stores of plaster casts. We see this in Scotland, with some notable exceptions (Foster forthcoming). Even today, replicas are still regarded as unruly or ‘wild’ objects, potentially subverting or threatening the authenticity of the originals (Stockhammer & Forberg 2017, 12). Where their values are recognised, such replicas are deemed to lack the ‘history of felt relationships’ of originals (Lowenthal 1985, 295). It hardly helps that, even when lauding them, they continue to be erroneously described as fakes (e.g. Wainwright 2018). However, there has been a ‘replication turn’ in scholarly and curatorial circles, even if its focus and application has not been even. There is an international surge in interdisciplinary – now transdisciplinary – critical studies about copies and replication, although these refer little to heritage practices and implications, with the emphasis generally being on copies made for museums (e.g. Forberg & Stockhammer 2017; Codell & Hughes 2018b; Brenna et al. 2019), and digital (see below). The history of plaster cast collections in museums has an international scholarship (Frederiksen & Marchand 2010; Lending 2017; Alexandridis & Winkler-Horacek forthcoming), with a new generation of scholars completing major studies that extend to other forms of replica as well (e.g. McCormick 2010; Kelly 2013b; Wade. 2012). Replicas are also coming out of curatorial purgatory. Visible sea-change is most evident in institutions for which historic collections of plaster casts were a significant part of their collecting ethos, if not their origins. Replicas are being valued for what they are, and as objects with their own biographies (Bevivino 2018). Between 2005 and 2010, the National Museum of Ireland exhibited Irish High Crosses in Dublin and Japan, where the crosses were plaster casts and the emphasis of the exhibition was on their history and craftsmanship (nmi 2005; 2010). Scholars are also more generally recognising the value of researching the skills and contributions of a wider spectrum of craftspeople (Kriegel 2007; hatii 2016; Wade 2019). The state-founded Gipsformerei in Berlin is still proudly producing plaster casts using traditional techniques and celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2019 (Tocha 2019). Developments at the V&A can be used to illustrate the ways in which the biographies of replicas are now being considered. It refurbished its Cast Courts in 2018, including the addition of a new gallery looking at replication. The captions in the galleries now focus more on the story of the cast rather than the original for which they were the proxy. A palpable interest in the biographies of the casts was also evident among their conservators at V&A Cast Courts Conference – Celebrating Reproductions: Past, Present and Future, which Foster attended in January 2019 (Fig. 5). This was the last of a series of activities marking the 150th anniversary of Henry Coles’ 1867 Convention for Promoting Universal Reproductions of Works of Art for the Benefit of Museums of all Countries, signed by

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Life as a replica 15 Figure 5 Johanna Puisto, sculpture conservator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, explains her research inspired by conserving the plaster casts.

all those princes (see above). The casts had all needed conservation as part of the refurbishment, whether to simply clean them or address structural issues. The intimate, embodied examination had enthused the people working with them; they were making new and exciting discoveries that enriched the stories of the casts, people and places associated with them. The V&A is rightly proud of its replication history, as are a growing number of other museums and art galleries (e.g. Waldron 2019). Any parallel shift in approach is not readily visible in heritage management circles known to us,

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16 My life as a replica

where the use of replicas has historically been more selective, and the situation is complicated by the fact that replicas are usually substituting for the originals in their historic locations, rather than being recontextualised in museums. Production of replicas for external use at heritage sites took off about the time that replications in museums went out of fashion. Taking Scotland as an example, the use of replicas became one of the options considered by newly instituted state heritage bodies as they developed their approaches to the conservation of monuments that had come into state care after World War One, e.g. a concrete copy of a carved stone cross made for Eilean Mor, Argyll and Bute in 1938. (But note the concrete Kildalton Cross made by Mrs Graham for her private gardens at Ardimersay House on Islay in 1882.) The current literature’s emphasis on digital copies is seen in the V&A’s 2017 re-envisioning of Cole’s 1867 convention as re ach (Reproduction of Art and Cultural Heritage) and a considerable new critical literature (Jeffrey 2015; Jones et al. 2017; Gartski 2017; V&A & Peri; Cormier 2018; Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco et al. 2018; Kenderdine 2018b). However, analogue copies also have a past, present and future that merits consideration, and there is much to learn from theoretical and practical replica studies that reflect on the authenticity and values of analogue and digital alongside each other (e.g. Jeffrey 2018). Digital subjects now include the analogue replicas themselves, such as the fire-damaged Laocoön plaster casts from the Glasgow School of Art (Glasgow School of Art 2019). Despite the ‘replica turn’, there is an absence of much published research about how replicas ‘work’ in practice, or in-depth cultural biographies that include replicas. This study of the St John’s Cross will significantly advance knowledge and understanding for both heritage and museum policy and practice. Our experience is that there are very divergent perceptions of the value of replicas, and that the heritage and museum sectors could benefit by sharing developments in thinking and practice.

The St John’s Cross and its copies matter The St John’s Cross matters in the context of wider replica studies because it is an internationally significant monument with an exceptionally long history of being emulated and copied. It is anyway a replica in its own right, of the True Cross of Christ. Between 1901 and 1970 it was replicated several times (Appendix 1). This activity was previously unresearched and here offers a counterpoint to studies that have mainly focused on replication of such monuments in the long nineteenth century. Unusually, this multiple replication of the St John’s Cross was for both museum and heritage site contexts. More broadly, the St John’s Cross matters because it is the progenitor of all the world’s ringed high-cross monuments, as established through detailed recording and analysis in the 1970s and early 1980s (Chapter 6). This ringed cross has been described as an eighth-century ‘theological experiment’, the ‘lasting trademark’ of the incredible flowering of stone sculpture that emerged on Iona in the eighth

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Figure 6 Monument to Sir Donald Currie (died 1909) and his wife Margaret Miller in Fortingall kirkyard, Perthshire, based on the St Martin’s Cross from Iona.

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to eleventh centuries ad, and representative of ‘the highest-level communication of learning and patronage’ (Forsyth & Maldonado 2012, 8, 30, 36). Alleged to be an accident of fate but also a profoundly innovative engineering concept (Chapter 4), the design of the St John’s Cross is the inspiration for the ringed high crosses that spread across the early medieval Irish world, particularly from the ninth and tenth centuries. From the 1860s, these distinctive high crosses were reborn as the ‘Celtic cross’ now found globally in graveyards and public spaces (Sheehy 1980, 73–5). The subject of ongoing research in Ireland and Scotland by Colleen Thomas, these are not strictly replicas, rather they reinterpret the early medieval forms ‘through a lens of Victorian aesthetic sensibilities’ (Thomas 2020 forthcoming). Her work is illuminating how what Oscar Wilde (cited in ibid.) described as ‘the works of native brain and hand’ owe their origins, prior to the Celtic Revival of the 1880s, in wide networks of relationships between scholars and artists, elite patrons and craftspeople. Published Irish and Scottish antiquarian visual sources from the 1840s onwards contributed to this, as did the appearance of modern and replica Irish high crosses at the popular Great Exhibition of 1851 and Dublin Great Industrial Exhibition of 1853 (Macdonald 2009; Williams 2012, 19–44; McCormick 2013). As with the replication of Celtic jewellery, different phases of production are visible, shaped by different motivations, patronage and authority (see Kelly 2013b). Both contemporary popular culture and modern scholarship place an emphasis on the Irish connections of these modern Celtic crosses. They are deemed Icons of Irishness (Williams 2012), but their prevalence in Britain, and the complexities of the rationale for this, is overlooked and under-researched. Thomas’ work challenges such views, for in the nineteenth century they signalled more than Irish identity. The earliest dated example of a Celtic cross that Thomas has identified so far stems, like its progenitor the St John’s Cross, from Scotland (Thomas pers comm). Nineteenth-century and later copies of the complete St Martin’s Cross and Kildalton Cross from the neighbouring island of Islay exist across the globe (Fig. 6). Their popularity arises from the fact that they were complete monuments, and stunning illustrations and photographs of them circulated in books. It was not until 1927 that the surviving fragments of the St John’s Cross were reconstructed into a monument, and this had gaps in the design. Nonetheless, this reconstruction spawned copies, which tend to be scaled-down reproductions and models. These have also had a world-wide distribution, but in different contexts. Since 1899, visitors to Iona have gone home with Iona Celtic Art, local jewellery and other art forms designed by Alexander and Euphemia Ritchie. They were the first to practise this craft on Iona itself, and claimed a superiority over rival jewellery makers because of their day-to-day contact with the original stones (E. M. MacArthur pers comm) (Fig. 7). This husband-and-wife team copied designs found on the island’s rich heritage of carved stones. The history of Iona Celtic Art is explored in a wonderfully illustrated book by Mairi MacArthur. The St John’s Cross was reproduced as wooden models, silver jewellery, and mounted

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in Iona marble as an ornament (MacArthur 2003). It is still possible to buy copies from the Ritchies’ original moulds but scaled-down replicas of this type have since proliferated and are widely available today from many sources (Fig. 8). Beyond the St John’s Cross, Iona lends itself in other ways for study as a place of replication. It can be argued that the arrival of Columba and the foundation of a monastery on Iona was in some way down to replication. A tradition, if unreliable, is that as a young aristocrat in Ireland he breached what we today Figure 7 Silver pendants made in Glasgow from the collection of Fiona MacSporran. From left to right MacLean’s Cross (1929) St John’s Cross (1934) St Martin’s Cross (1934) Iona Celtic Art is now much valued on Iona and elsewhere: ‘they’ve just gone down as legend, and anything “Ritchie” means an awful lot to me’, islander Flora told us.

Figure 8 Celtic-cross

merchandise in The Iona Shop in Oban.

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think of as copyright by copying a manuscript; this led to a battle after which he was exiled from Ireland and came to Iona (Sharpe 1995, 13). Iona’s early medieval scriptorium, where the Book of Kells was undoubtedly produced, is also a place where copies were made. Emulating things would also have been a practice in the monastery’s sculpture and metalworking workshops. The modern desire to emulate Iona extended in 1926 to Flora Macdonald College, Red Springs, USA wanting to erect a replica of the ‘old cathedral’ in its grounds (nrhe 551 355/1/2). What therefore can we learn by asking questions of replicas, and how should we go about it?

The lives and voices of replicas Metaphorically speaking, any object can have a social life, a cultural biography. In the sense they acquire different meanings at key moments in their career, objects are ‘born’, ‘live’ and ‘die’, and may be ‘reborn’ (Kopytoff 1986; Appadurai 1986). Things may mean different things in different contexts (Alberti 2005, 567 talks of ‘boundary objects’), and these changes may or may not involve any transformation in physical appearance. This is an object-centred approach, but then objects are the things around which relationships adhere (Gosden & Marshall 1999, 5). It is also an approach that does not privilege one period in the life of an object above another (e.g. Clarke 2007) and invites a wider context for that understanding. To subvert the now ubiquitous ‘world-in-one-hundredobjects’ concept, the beauty is that we can explore ‘a hundred worlds in one object’ (Foster et al. 2014, 138). It is perhaps surprising just how little replicas have featured in archaeologists’ cultural-biographical studies of things despite the interest in how visual technologies play their part in making meaning, and the recognition of the power and value of reproductions in many academic disciplines (e.g. Benjamin 1892; Hughes & Ranfft 1997; Schwartz 1998; Moser 2001; Nordbladh 2012; Perry 2013). Exceptions include Joy’s (2002) study of his grandfather’s replica medal, which illustrated how meaning transferred from the empty medal box of the lost original to the replica, and our incorporation of the interpretative reconstruction of the Hilton of Cadboll cross-slab into the monument’s lengthy biography (Foster & Jones 2008). It is our contention that the optimum interest and value of replicas lies in their appreciation as part of a composite cultural biography that links and combines the lives of the original and all its reproductions (as first practised in Foster et al. 2014). This idea builds on the work of Latour and Lowe. Although hardly the first people to rehabilitate reproductions as originals in their own right (e.g. McAndrew 1955), they argue that the focus should be on the multiple relationships and lives of the authentic original and all its reproduced originals. The composite biographical approach therefore involves mapping through time what Latour and Lowe describe as object career trajectories. They use the analogy of hydrographers examining the full extent and catchment of a river rather than focusing on the

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20 My life as a replica

original spring (Latour & Lowe 2011, 278). The original objects might not have moved (far) from where they were first erected, while direct copies might make their way around the world. Carved stones, a key early medieval resource in much of north-western Europe, offer added value and interest as subjects because they can move between static and portable states, e.g. the Dupplin Cross, and are much copied (Foster 2001; 2010). This means that their relationships with places and communities also change. When associated with a place over time, they can acquire histories as re-interpretations build up around them. When portable – whether it is the parent material or the copy that has moved – histories build up through exchange and circulation (Foster & Jones 2008; Joy 2009). The challenge in applying any cultural biographical approach is to be able to elucidate the life-history of any subject, and its changing relationship with people, places and other things. Behind the individual objects are messy backstories from which we can derive insights into the actual details of what people do and why (cf. Shanks 1992, 47; Hodder 2012, 222). Object biographies matter today because they influence the experience of aura and play an important role in the production of meaning, identity and memory (Jones & Leech 2015, §3.23; e.g. Hingley 2012). With its anthropological and archaeological origins, the cultural biographical approach focuses on the materiality and agency of the thing as it entangles with people (Gosden & Marshall 1999; Hoskins 2006). In modern times we may encounter long-lived objects as archaeological discoveries, when they become the things we interpret them to be (Holtorf 2002). The recent period in the life of an archaeological object is also when its replication may have played a part in attributing new meanings to the original: ‘copies have the power to reenact and redirect the original in relation to themselves’ (Mersmann 2017, 266). With replicas generally treated as a proxy for something else, curatorial and management practices tend to silence them (Cameron 2007, 60, 70). The existing on-site presentation at Iona does not in any way tell the story of the replica. Having argued above that a replica can have a metaphorical life, it can surely also speak. But how? We could put words in the mouth of the replica cross, in the tradition of the early eighth-century Anglo-Saxon poem The Dream of the Rood (part of a wider early medieval tradition of crosses speaking and having human-like experiences: Jensen 2017, 125, 135–40). Appearing in the poet’s dream, the Cross of Calvary, the ‘triumph-tree’, reflects on the various stages of its role in Christ’s death (translation and short commentary in Clancy 1998, 121–5). With sections of this redemptive poem inscribed onto a cousin of the St John’s Cross, the eighth-century Ruthwell Cross, that cross therefore looks down and ‘speaks’ to its audience: ‘I can heal everyone who holds me in awe’, recounts the poem (Clancy 1998, 124). We have opted to imagine ourselves in the head of the replica in a few places, as a device to invite reflection (quotes credited to ‘St John’s Cross’, as at the beginning of this chapter). However, in what follows the St John’s Cross replica essentially acquires a voice in the sense that it that speaks to us through its impact upon us. These might be sensory or emotional, in response to its biography, materiality, location or setting. This sort

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of approach has its roots in post-humanist thinking. Here the aim is to balance the relationship of people and things by giving objects and other non-human things greater agency in what Webmoor and Witmore describe as ‘networks of associations’ (Webmoor & Witmore 2008, 65, examples of this approach include: Gosden 2005; Dudley 2015). Indeed, it is related thinking concerning connectivity ontologies that informed the thinking of one of us (Jones 2010) about the importance of networks of relations between people, objects and things in the experience of authenticity (see above). Object agency also comes to the fore in such thinking; as Pearson and Shanks argue, building on the work of Walter Benjamin, ‘[t]o perceive the aura of an object is to invest it with the ability to look at us in return’ because we in some way animate the inanimate (Pearson & Shanks 2001, 95). An interesting example that seeks to put such an approach into practice is Ryan Lash’s ‘enchantment of stone’ study in the context of historic and contemporary Irish pilgrimage practices. What emerges is the particularity and changing nature of ‘embodied affects and political and ideological effects’ (Lash 2018), and this is what we seek to recognise by letting the St John’s Cross speak. Recognising the power of objects to speak, because of their capacity to generate sensory and emotional engagement, is directly relevant to heritage interpretation and education. Affective experiences with things – wonder, identification, empathy, affection, dread, contagion and revulsion – all have the potential, if harnessed, to lead to new appreciations of significance. Such experiences dynamically condense the past and present as people make biographical links between themselves and lives of the things they encounter (Jones 2016a). It is no coincidence that we talk of things speaking to us if they generate meaningful stories.

Capturing lives – objects, texts, images and people This project is the first major interdisciplinary study to practise a composite biography that explores the linked lives of an original, a replica and other related copies. The methodological questions are how to investigate the lives of the replica, original and other copies (what, when, how, why?), how to recognise and interpret the significant biographical moments in their lives, and how to do so in a way in which the agency of the objects themselves are given due weight. It will help to first remind us of the timeline of the cross and its replicas: there are over 1200 years to populate (detail in Chapters 4–7). In short, we know that the eighth-century cross was broken up by the seventeenth century; locals and antiquarians gradually recognised and gathered together its fragments, ultimately reuniting these with the in-situ shaft in a reconstructed cross in 1927. This reconstruction first promoted the creation of scaled-down reproductions. It fell in 1951, was recreated in 1954 and fell again in 1957. The original cross was later taken off Iona for technical conservation. Meantime, David F. O. Russell, a wealthy business man with Iona connections, and the Iona Cathedral Trust, which had acquired the ruined Abbey in 1899, initiated the production of the

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22 My life as a replica

full-scale concrete replica. The resulting replica was erected in-situ, in the St John’s Cross’ original box-base in 1970. The stone original was returned to the island in 1990, to a museum at the Abbey created by a now-resident religious group called the Iona Community. The national heritage body, Historic Scotland (now Historic Environment Scotland), assumed guardianship of the Abbey and related monuments in 1999. In 2013, Historic Environment Scotland opened a new state-of-the-art Abbey Museum, its central tour de force remaining the upright, girded fragments of the original St John’s Cross. Small-scale replicas will blend their way into the story but are not the focus for the primary research. We can of course draw on secondary sources, indeed for the period to the end of the nineteenth century this is largely what we can and will do. Only one academic paper has ever been written about the 1970 replica, and this focused on how the design of the missing parts of the cross was inferred (Robertson 1975). There are modern, authoritative writings about the history and interpretation of the original St John’s Cross, from a primarily art-historical perspective (notably: rcahms 1982; Fisher 2001). Recent art-historical scholarship looks at iconography, or reflects the ‘material turn’ and its interest in agency (Hawkes 2005; Pulliam 2013; Gefreh 2015). Understanding of the archaeology of early medieval Iona is astonishingly poor for such a universally significant place, but fresh insights arise from reviews and publication of past excavations, and recent fieldwork. The history of the Abbey and scholarship on it is also usefully summarised in various sources (rcahms 1982, 31–49; Barber 1982; O’Sullivan 1998; O’Sullivan 1999; Iona Research Group; Campbell & Maldonado 2020 forthcoming). A topical but unpublished review of Iona’s early medieval sculpture, commissioned by Historic Scotland, also helps provide important new ideas about the context of the St John’s Cross; this is also one of several works reminding us to rethink what happened on Iona in the ninth to eleventh centuries (Forsyth & Maldonado 2012). The literary / historical sources for early medieval Iona are much better served by modern scholarship (e.g. Sharpe 1995; Clancy & Márkus 1995; Clancy 1996; Fraser 2009; 2016). We can draw on all the above to understand the St John’s Cross in its early medieval context. Secondary sources also serve us well for understanding Iona’s later architectural and historical development, and what people have written about the island (MacArthur 2003; 2007a; 2007b; Marshall 2014; Crawford 2016; rcahms 1982), as well as the history of the Iona Community (Ferguson 2001; Muir 2011). The physical remains of the original Cross are mounted for public display in the Abbey Museum, while the concrete 1970 replica stands in the original base of the cross in front of St Columba’s Shrine. Through archival research, research in museum collections, and asking around, we have been able to map the trajectory and pedigree of the direct copies (Fig. 9). We have also tracked down surviving physical remains stemming from the manufacturing process for the concrete replica, described in Appendix 1. These objects capture the technology of the cross and replicas, and the events that have happened to them. They have also been at the heart of the ethnographic research and oral history described

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Figure 9 A summary

of the original St John’s Cross components and the relationships of its full-scale direct copies, indicating their current locations. The numbers refer to Appendix 1.

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24 My life as a replica

below. For the original stone cross, we have relied heavily on the published and unpublished surveys of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and the Discovery Programme scan (rcahms 1982, n82, n96; Discovery Programme 2016), and we examined photographs in Historic Environment Scotland working archives. In Chapters 4 and 6 we can therefore offer some new observations about the biography of the cross derived from study of its physical remains. Documentary and visual sources evidence and contextualise the life of the cross and replica; they can be mined for the ways in which such objects are valued and carry meaning. However, the St John’s Cross is ‘invisible’ in the sources until parts of it were recorded by Edward Lhuyd in 1699 (Campbell & Thomson 1963; Edwards & Roberts 2010). Antiquarians and early travellers were fascinated by Iona, its ruins and carved stones. The outcome is a substantial body of diaries, travel accounts, articles in antiquarian journals and magazines, newspaper articles, personal correspondence and, latterly, books for visitors about the island (rcahms 1982, 150–1; Foster 2017). Many of the early visual sources for Iona are published in the splendid Iona Portrayed (Christian & Stiller 2000). For the modern period, MacArthur has thoroughly researched the historical and literary sources, and an important early Gaelic source from 1771 has also been reviewed (MacArthur 1989; Sharpe 2012). We have usually relied on transcriptions of early accounts, but one of the original unpublished manuscripts Foster consulted led to the discovery of a very useful illustrated account of a visit to Iona in 1825, published in part here for the first time (Chapter 3). Another first is some of the illustrations from H. D. Graham’s ‘Antiquities’ album of 1850 (Chapter 4). Eliciting the story of the 1970 replica involved patient triangulation of fragmented sources, largely an extensive body of correspondence, archived in three separate institutions. To avoid choking our text with complex Harvard references for these manuscript sources, Appendix 2 provides a discursive guide to the key sources for different parts of the plot. Four specific bodies of archival material have been key to understanding the twentieth-century history of the Abbey, its carved stones, the St John’s Cross and its replica: the papers of the Iona Cathedral Trust; the government files of Historic Environment Scotland and its predecessor bodies, and associated published reports of the Ancient Monument Boards; the personal papers of Major David Francis Ogilvy Russell; and the personal papers of engineer John Rodger Scott. In addition to the visual sources produced by antiquarians, artists and others, we have found historic postcards an invaluable source as a record of the condition of the Abbey and what the landscape surrounding the cross looked like at any point (Fig. 10). We have also drawn on two films. During one of our interviews, we learnt that Murdo MacKenzie had produced a home cine film of the last stages of the replica’s production and erection. Son of the engineer who erected the 1970 replica, MacKenzie also kindly shared with us his extensive family archive of letters, magazines, newspaper cuttings, photographs etc. (Fig. 11). He allowed us to make a copy of his film and to record Foster discussing

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Figure 10 above Child and Classroom Assistant working with historic postcards and images of Iona Abbey during our project’s 2018 workshop in the Primary School on Iona.

Figure 11 above right Murdo MacKenzie with his father’s Concrete Society 2000/2001 award for the St John’s Cross replica.

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it with him for YouTube (MacKenzie & Foster 2018). The second film, a video that used to be sold on Iona, was made for the Iona Cathedral Trust. It records the return of the original St John’s Cross to Iona in 1990 after over a decade of conservation in Edinburgh, through the eyes of the conservators, architects and work squads involved (ict 1991). When it comes to working with people, we undertook ethnographic investigations, at the heart of which was the 1970 concrete replica. In particular, we examined the construction and negotiation of authenticity with specific attention to the role of social relations, materiality, place and the cultural biography of the replica. Applying techniques of rapid, focused ethnographic research (Low 2002; Taplin et al. 2002; Knoblauch 2005), we used semi-structured interviews to explore people’s experience of the replica in the context of Iona, the Abbey, and the crosses. We conducted short interviews with day tourists and longer interviews (48 hours plus in total) with island residents, heritage professionals, Iona Community staff and residents and other longer-term visitors. The latter we recorded and had transcribed whereas we took detailed notes on the former. At the end of our interviews we shared photographs of some of the replica’s makers at work with a view to exploring the difference this made to perceptions of authenticity and value. The breakdown of our interviews is summarised in Appendix 3. Our timing (June and July 2017) and the difficulty of talking to people only on the island for a few hours meant we did not ‘capture’ families on purely recreational breaks to Iona. A significant number of the visitors to Iona were repeat visitors,

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many identifying themselves with a faith, mostly types of Protestantism, some post-denominational, but also five other world religions. We also used intensive observation to examine how people engaged with the replica, its fragmented historic parent and other crosses on the island (Fig. 12). This included accompanying and observing short religious pilgrimages organised for visitors. Fieldnotes in relation to this and all other aspects of our fieldwork captured our individual observations and thoughts. Foster employed NVivo qualitative software to manage the analysis of a substantial body of material. We also held a small workshop based on the accord project methodology (Jones et al. 2017, 6–7). The two participants and the project team produced a 3d photogrammetric model of the replica, and three other subjects (Fig. 13). This digital practice provided an important arena for focused group interviews, one at the start of the co-production, and one at the end, providing what Pink and Morgan refer to as an ‘intense route to knowing’ (Pink & Morgan 2013). In February 2018 we extended elements of this approach to a workshop with the Iona Primary School to gain insights into the children’s perceptions of the replica and other crosses (for digital outputs see GSofASimVis 2017/18). We interviewed teachers before and after, observed the children in class and in the field, and made observations from their artwork (Fig. 14). The ethnographic work was based on the principle of informed consent (as laid out in the Ethical Guidelines of the Society of Social Anthropologists) and submitted for prior ethical approval to the University of Stirling. All ethnographic sources have been given a pseudonym. Some of the people we interviewed were involved in the creation of the replica in some way, or were observers. They also contributed important oral histories, furnished many important factual details and

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Figure 12 Participant

observation, ethically conducted, was an important part of the ethnographic research on Iona.

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Figure 13 Co-production of a digital scan, led by Dr Stuart Jeffrey, Glasgow School of Art. In this case, the concrete gatepost of the Church of Scotland Manse, repaired and inscribed by the 1962 World Council of Churches Ecumenical Work Camp.

Figure 14 Children of

Iona Primary School with Stuart Jeffrey and Sally Foster.

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28 My life as a replica

agreed to be identified in relation to these: John Lawrie, his son Adrian Lawrie, Murdo MacKenzie and Ian G. Scott. As our Acknowledgements indicate, many other people responded to our various research queries in person or by email, not least Ian Fisher, leading authority on the original St John’s Cross. We have also been able to draw on ethnographic work by Krittika Bhattacharjee that was being completed as we began our study. Her research focused on religion and tourism rather than heritage and explores what she frames as ‘specialness’ and ‘visitorship’ in relation to the island as a whole (Bhattacharjee 2018). Our ethnographic research focused more specifically on the Abbey and its context, and our interviews extended beyond visitors to include Iona residents of all ages, heritage professionals and others connected with Iona. We undertook our interviews within the Abbey grounds, around the island, in people’s homes and visitors’ temporary accommodation, as well as in offices and homes in mainland Scotland. Overall, our interdisciplinary project has therefore demanded primary research, drawing on objects, documentary and visual sources, and people.

Piecing it all together When it comes to Part II of this book, we can therefore explore the identifiable biographical moments in the life of the St John’s Cross and its copies, with an emphasis on also telling the story of the 1970 replica, as captured in Fig. 15. In including our own ethnographic work in the biography of the St John’s Cross, we are acknowledging the transformative nature of research, and anticipating the fiftieth-anniversary of the concrete replica in 2020. This gave us a deadline for finishing this book, and led to us inviting Historic Environment Scotland to review their designation of Iona Abbey, i.e to add the specifically excluded replica (see pp. 168, 180, 185). Researchers are never neutral in their impact (Handler 2001, 963). We recognise, whether we like it or not, that in some small way we have written ourselves into the biography of the cross and its replica. Our impact began with our on-the-ground research – the children’s illustrations we have used in this book are one obvious source of evidence for this – and the findings presented here will hopefully have a longer-term legacy on the ground in Iona, and in terms of international policies and practices in relation to replicas. Chapters 4 to 6 consciously reference or draw out the temporal dimension of some of the themes identified by our ethnographic fieldwork (Chapter 7). Comparison with the case of Hilton of Cadboll will be inevitable. Unlike at Hilton there is no current controversy surrounding any of the Iona carved stones that might influence the ways in which authenticity is being experienced and mobilised, e.g. by forms of dislocation and displacement, or inclusion and exclusion (Foster & Jones 2008; Jones 2016b, 138; Jones et al. 2017, 17). Both places relate to important early monasteries. Hilton of Cadboll and the Pictish carved stones surviving nearby at Nigg and Shandwick are now thought to relate to a Pictish monastery recognised at Portmahomack (Tarbat), sometimes described as ‘an Iona of the East’ (Carver 2004). However, this undocumented

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major monastery, lost to history, has not acquired the reputation and sacred power of Iona, and anyway lacks its island mystery and tradition, although the peninsula is, as Carver points out, also island-like. The monasteries also have some local topographical parallels (Campbell 2019). Iona’s many carved stones, multiple communities of interest and successful tourism are therefore very different from Hilton and its neighbours. All the same, its carved stones are also agents and expressions of difference between islander and multiple ‘non-local’ parties. Both the Hilton and Iona replicas were created out of the heart-felt and strong motivation to replace – whole – something that was fragmentary and ‘lost’ to where it belonged (to Edinburgh’s National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in the case of Hilton, to an uncertain future in the case of St John’s Cross). But if Hilton is a story of fragmentation and displacement, the St John’s Cross feels like a story of integration and renewal. The fate of the St John’s Cross has at times been the prime agent that agitated the mix of communities, particularly in the last century. But it did so in the context of wider concerns about Iona’s Abbey and its carved stones. Who then are Iona’s communities and what has been their interest in Iona’s carved stones? What difference has it made that Iona has been a heritage site for centuries, and indeed a long-standing place of replica creation, with the Abbey itself a form of replication? In what ways are Iona and its carved stones perceived as special, and to whom? We will explore this over the next two chapters. 1 Words

spoken by Jacinda Ardern at a press conference on 15 March 2019; see also Webmoor & Witmore 2008, ‘things are us’.

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Figure 15 Visual summary of the key biographical moments in the life of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 15 Visual summary of the key biographical moments in the life of the St John’s Cross.

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Figure 16 Map of Iona identifying key sites mentioned in the text.

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2 Loving Iona that was the kind of beginning of the love story for me, I suppose; I’ve been back every year since on my own steam, just because you can’t help it Stella I think that remoteness, and yet, when you get to the end of that road, literally, and you end up on Iona, that sense of community and engagement with people is lovely, absolutely lovely. It’s a very special place I think Gordon

For such a tiny island, Iona is a particularly complex place, in both material and social terms. It bears a ‘burden of history and legend, of beliefs and expectation’ (MacArthur 2007a, 199). Endearing itself to generations of people, Iona has become integral to personal, communal and national identities, memories and narratives. We see this in the reflections of Stella and Gordon, both people who came to Iona for work and are now regular visitors. Such intensity of feeling and density of activity inevitably comes with some competing attachments and sometimes contestation, particularly centred on the Abbey, Reilig Odhráin and the Nunnery. This reveals itself in the ways that individuals and communities have woven themselves into its story, founding these new meanings on Iona’s special qualities. These views shape the context in which we must consider the biography of the St John’s Cross. Perhaps you have never been to Iona. You should know then that it has always required an effort to get to there. The small island sits off the western tip of Mull, its mountainous island neighbour in Scotland’s Inner Hebridean archipelago (Fig. 16). Yet every year domestic and foreign visitors swell its population a thousand times over. Iona has been internationally renowned since at least the mid-sixth century, when St Columba arrived from Ireland and established his monastic base. Early medieval Iona was part of the Irish, Gaelic-speaking world, to which it was connected by the North Channel and Atlantic Sea. In modern times, the island’s ‘remote’ nature, monastic ruins and its extraordinary assemblage of historic carved stones, combined with the romantic lure of Fingal’s Cave on the neighbouring island of Staffa, has attracted centuries of travellers, antiquarians and scholars. Iona’s adoption as a base by the ecumenical Iona Community in 1938 injected new life into its religious story, and a new legion of visitors. The extended intensity of outside interest in such a small and ‘remote’ place is extraordinary. Through all this, it was the home of Gaelic-speaking islanders who predominantly sought a living from farming, fishing and latterly crofting and tourism (MacArthur 2007a; 2007b). This chapter introduces some

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3 4 My life as a replica

Figure 17 Aerial photograph of Iona village and Abbey from south-east, showing the village and route from the modern ferry pier to the Abbey church in 1997.

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of the ways in which Iona is regarded as special today, with Chapter 3 providing further time-depth. But first we must introduce you to Iona’s crosses, since these are central to our study.

Island of crosses Visiting Iona for any reason, it was and is quite impossible to ignore the high crosses that cluster around the Abbey and village area. Since at least the eighth century ad, ornate monumental crosses have marked important places, people and events on the island. There is a romantic but problematic tradition that the island once had 360 crosses of some sort. Historian of Iona, Mairi MacArthur, follows MacPhail who in 1925 suggested the 360 number is an early misunderstanding and conflation of two seventeenth-century sources (MacArthur 2007a, 20–1; Stevenson, J. H. 1928). For example, the Synod of Argyll met on Iona in 1642 and passed a resolution against ‘idolatrouse monuments’, reputedly leading to 60 crosses being thrown into the sea (rcahms 1982, 150). We must assume that many different types of carved stones were being described as crosses. Certainly, only fourteen free-standing crosses are known. Regardless of any exaggeration and ambiguity about what was being described, we get the sense that this was a place recognised as containing many stone crosses (rcahms 1982, 179–241). Some orientation and basic introduction to Iona and the surviving crosses is required (Figs 16–17). Before 1850, visitors usually came ashore on the sandy Martyr’s Bay or at nearby St Ronan’s Bay. We now disembark in the village at the modern pier, and routes to the Abbey have changed, but today’s companionable peregrination is still on foot. Having walked up from the pier and through the Nunnery grounds, the first cross we will encounter is the in-situ MacLean’s Cross (Fig. 18), erected beside the road where past and present pilgrims to the Abbey could not miss it. Immediately inside the grounds of the Abbey, we now encounter a trio of crosses: St John’s, St Martin’s and St Matthew’s (see Fig. 2). The concrete

Figure 18 The fifteenthcentury MacLean’s Cross was erected by a secular patron. ‘I like MacLean’s Cross because the thickness of it, where it’s sitting and the fact it’s survived … it’s like any cross, I suppose, but the things it must have seen, the people’, regular visitor Al told us.

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replica of the St John’s Cross stands in situ in the original base. St Martin’s is still standing in situ. St Matthew’s is a vacant cross-base. The original St John’s, St Matthew’s and St Oran’s high crosses are to be found, less their bases, in the Abbey’s site museum (Fig. 19). Here there is also a ring-less cross-head that was recovered from the Reilig Odhráin in 1978. Less obvious, there are also medieval cross-bases on the top of Tòrr an Aba, location of Columba’s writing cell (see Fig. 51), and in the Reilig Odhráin cemetery that contains the twelfth-century St Oran’s Chapel. A second cross-base from Reilig Odhráin, the burial place of some early medieval kings, is now in the Abbey Museum, and there are bases

Figure 19 Original crosses in Iona Abbey Museum, displayed without their bases. Left to right St Oran’s Cross (mid-eighth century), St John’s Cross and St Matthew’s Cross.

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for smaller monuments. Beyond these high crosses, five further crosses are also recorded at four locations in place-name or traditional sources. But there is more. Two modern memorials consciously reference Iona’s highcross form and are therefore a form of replica in their own right: the Duchess Cross and the War Memorial. The Memorial stands by the shore, close to the village where the road leads to Martyr’s Bay (Fig. 20). This is a practical and symbolic location that places the memorial close to the community whose loss it commemorates. The original intention had though been to erect it on the stony ridge in the Reilig Odhráin, which continues to serve as the burial place for the

Figure 20 Iona War Memorial, designed by Alexander Ritchie and unveiled in 1921.

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local community. The 1879 Duchess Cross was erected by the 8th Duke of Argyll, then owner of Iona, to commemorate his first wife. This cross stands away from the heart of the modern island community, on the roadside to the north of the Abbey (Fig. 21). This viewpoint was a favourite place for the Duchess, ‘erected in the island she loved’ (Balfour 1911, 102 and opposite p. 224).

Multiple communities what I do like is the community spirit, the island community, among friends and neighbours and people who genuinely want to settle here. As you know, we’ve got the housing complex up beside the parish church Flora

Figure 21 Commemorating Elizabeth LewesonGowes, Duchess of Argyll (died 1878), this cross has a secondary inscription to her daughter Victoria, for ‘her life and work among the people of the islands 1910’.

Iona now has a population of just 130 or so. Iona’s residents often have several jobs. While some still croft, parent, run the shops, run creative or technical businesses from home, deliver the mail, teach, are trained fire-fighters or even just retired, many of them service the needs of tourists in some way. They provide accommodation, restaurants, cafes, shops, things to sell in the shops, boat trips, act as tour guides and staff the heritage sites, with a significant workforce living on the island seasonally. As islander Flora’s emphasis conveys, this community is dynamic and expanding, with the recent provision of handsome social housing. The population comprises of those who have grown up there (including families with long-established Iona pedigrees), those who have chosen to live there, and Iona Community staff and volunteers. Its 130,000 or so annual visitors include weekly visitors to the Iona Community, day-trippers and long-stay visitors. The long-stay visitors are often repeat visitors and transgenerational. To judge from the people we met and interviewed, long-stay visitors are frequently people who might describe themselves as spiritual in some way. They can have Iona Community backgrounds, and can have a knowledge of Iona’s history, and familiarity with

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its present. Artists are often among their number, continuing a long tradition of painters coming to Iona for their holidays and to work, particularly since the 1890s. Famous names include John Duncan, F. C. B. Cadell, S. J. Peploe, W. McTaggart and R. Gibb (Christian & Stiller 2000; Morrison 2003, 206–11). These numbers are swelled further by people who commute to the island seasonally, tradesmen and women, people skilled in particular crafts, and other professionals, such as those working for Historic Environment Scotland or the National Trust for Scotland. Short- and long-term researchers like us must even be added to that mix. An important distinction needs to be made between the community of Iona, who often refer to themselves as ‘islanders’, and the Iona Community. Founded in Glasgow by the Reverend George MacLeod, the Iona Community is a dispersed Christian ecumenical community rooted in the Church of Scotland, with its origins in a social commitment to deprived people in central Glasgow during the Depression. Between 1938 and 1965 it rebuilt and moved into the Abbey’s ruined later medieval monastic buildings. MacLeod had been encouraged in this venture by Sir David Russell (1872–1956). A wealthy Fife businessman who came to Iona for his holidays and bought a family house there in 1933, he was initially interested in restoring part of the Abbey for an annual Iona Retreat for Divinity students from Scottish universities. The Abbey Church had already been restored and brought back into use under the aegis of the Iona Cathedral Trust between 1903 and 1910. The Trust had been set up to receive and manage the Abbey when the 8th Duke of Argyll decided to relinquish his family’s ownership (MacArthur 2007a, 83–4; Marshall 2014, 116–17). The Trustees were to include representatives from the Church of Scotland and the old Scottish universities. The episcopalian Duke wanted to counter the divided Church in Scotland (Bradley 1999, 147), but it is only since 2010 that there have been representatives from the Catholic and Scottish Episcopal Churches, as well as the island community. Recent religious history on Iona is therefore complex, what with the involvement of so many church organisations, and spiritual organisations such as the Findhorn Foundation. Today there are several much-used retreats on the island. This twentieth-century history means that the Abbey’s recent care can be thought of in three stages that involved different communities in different ways. First, despite the concerns of leading antiquarian such as J. Romilly Allen and Professor Gerard Baldwin Brown who were opposed to its restoration, between 1903 and 1914 the Iona Cathedral Trust commissioned architect Peter MacGregor Chalmers to restore the nave, and Thomas Ross and John Honeyman to restore the choir and transepts (MacArthur 2007a, 85–6). The islanders and their guests were once more permitted regular worship in their Cathedral. Second, with the arrival of the Iona Community in 1938, the Iona Cathedral Trustees gave MacLeod permission for his rebuilding plans. Completed in 1965, the Iona Community’s architect Ian G. Lindsay ‘effectively reconstructed the characteristic grouping of a medieval monastery’ (rcahms 1982, 27) (Fig. 22). He built on plans for the reconstruction of the Abbey prepared by architect Reginald Fairlie

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in 1931, following a commission from Sir David Russell (Dictionary of Scottish Architects 2014). The third horizon of renewal began after 1999 when the Iona Cathedral Trust transferred guardianship of the Abbey to Historic Scotland, the national heritage body. This body, now Historic Environment Scotland, has responsibility for the conservation, interpretation and presentation of the Abbey, including St Oran’s Chapel, and the Nunnery. This leaves the Iona Community, which still occupies the Abbey’s claustral buildings, to focus on its spiritual affairs. Islanders primarily worship in the Parish Church, reserving the Abbey for special occasions. The other major institution involved with Iona is the National Trust for Scotland. This member-based conservation charity, focusing on both natural and cultural heritage, was gifted the island less its Abbey, other historic sites and community buildings in 1979. MacLeod’s legacy lives on. Autocratic, patrician, charismatic and quick-witted, his was a passionate mission for a socially relevant church. Yet his personality

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Figure 22 Ian G. Lindsay & Partners’ summary of the Abbey’s twentiethcentury rebuild. The present-day Abbey Museum is in the Infirmary building, bottom right.

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and radical agenda created divisions as he sought to create a formal religious community, one that, controversially, incorporated the island’s name (Ferguson 2001; Muir 2011, 91–123). As islander Jim recollected, capturing the diversity of island attitudes to MacLeod, ‘he came in kind of rough shod, but it’s just as well he did because it would never have been done if he hadn’t’. While initial tensions with the literally put-upon islanders had started to ease by the mid-1950s (Muir 2011, 99), challenges remain. Islander Donald reflected a widely held sentiment when he told us: ‘there’s really two communities in a way, although they’re much more one community now than they were’ (see MacArthur 2007a, 148–62, 195–6). Describing the older ‘islanders’, fellow resident Margaret reflected on how ‘some of them were so against the Iona Community that they almost seem to absolve themselves from the Abbey’. Accordingly, residents of Iona also emphasise that there is more to Iona than the Abbey and Columba, both before and afterwards. This is captured in how the island community reacted to the 2016–17 discovery of a Neolithic settlement by archaeologists excavating for the primary school extension (Canmore 351310): this is pre-Christian, this isn’t about the Iona Community or the building up there, it’s the oldest find ever on the island, and that has created so much energy in the island population, people wanting to know about it, and wanting to hear what was found … it feels like it’s everywhere, rather than just in one point Peter, a returnee resident

In a similar vein, the Community Council was interested in what happens to a medieval carved stone found in the same excavations, because it is not of the Abbey. In our interviews we also noted the way that the non-monastic and female dimension of Iona’s past residents were sometimes also emphasised. Locals told us that Columba has a tradition of being a misogynist (although we did not establish the roots of this). Whatever the basis, it is important for the island’s residents to have a positive, non-Columban, non-Abbey identity that is their own. This point is reinforced by the excellent interpretation at the islanders’ Heritage Centre. This focuses resolutely on the island community with little mention of the Abbey or the Iona Community. It reflects the historical research of MacArthur, descendent of an Iona family (MacArthur 2007b). As Mary, a Trustee of the Centre says, ‘the whole aim of the Heritage Centre has always been, to tell the story of the ordinary folk of Iona who get overshadowed by the Iona Community with capital letters, and St Columba really’. Columba and the Abbey, but studiously not the Iona Community, is the interpretative preserve of Historic Environment Scotland. Meantime, in the shared Abbey space, the Iona Community tells its own story. The Iona Cathedral Trust has published a book to tell its perspective (Marshall 2014). There is a largely unspoken interpretative diplomacy among the island’s many communities, which can overlap, and unknowing outsiders just have to join the dots for themselves.

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4 2 My life as a replica

The islanders and people working on Iona recognise the inevitable fragility of being part of a small island community, but at the same time express a palpable pride that it is also resilient, vibrant and growing. Despite some historic tensions surrounding the establishment of the Iona Community, it is now seen as an important component in the island’s thriving economy and social life. Not least, the Iona Community contributes to the island’s rich international networks. These challenge notions of ‘remoteness’ and echo the widespread significance of the island in the early medieval (pre-Benedictine) period. Nevertheless, the ‘islanders’ actively distinguish themselves from the Iona Community: they work to be good neighbours, but there are fences. These fences reflect the specific agenda and focus of the Iona Community. As Iona resident Mary noted, not unsympathetically, ‘there’s not a lot of integration goes on … because they’re [the Iona Community] so darned busy doing what they’re doing up the road’. Iona is therefore a ‘busy’ place in terms of its multiple communities (see Frontispiece), and our research shows the different ways in which some of these communities perceive the island and its constituent places. When islanders such as Isla say ‘I still call it the Cathedral, I still feel, it feels wrong to say, the Abbey’, they are reflecting that the Abbey Church, temporarily elevated to Cathedral status in the late fifteenth century (Marshall 2014, 76–7), has a long history as the place of worship of islanders. Its modern-day reconstruction also has its origins in the work of the Iona Cathedral Trust rather than the Iona Community. There are ways in which these expressions are socially organised and systematised, and we might loosely therefore speak of ‘gazes’, systematic ways of seeing, where place and things stand for something ‘other’. Such gazes are not just confined to tourists temporarily visiting places not connected with their work (cf. Urry 2002, 1–15; 145–61), as the ‘Cathedral’ example hints. As we shall see in Chapter 7, there are also ways in which specific activities and sensory experiences beyond the visual shape a range of experiences. What is perhaps more obvious in this chapter is some of the ways in which certain discourses inform how different communities perceive things. These focus on certain places in the landscape, and the carved stones within these places. Iona is a place of both hard and imagined boundaries, layered in a multitude of ways. Correspondingly, certain places are identified as ‘belonging’ to different communities. Looming large in the lives and identities of island residents are the school, village hall, Heritage Centre and Parish Church (Fig. 23). Earlier historic sites are also locally inflected. The island is served by a single main road, and historic places on or beside the road are perceived to be more ‘of’ the island community than the Abbey: the Nunnery (in Historic Environment Scotland care), Reilig Odhráin cemetery (St Oran’s Chapel within it is in Historic Environment Scotland care), MacLean’s Cross (ditto) and War Memorial (see Fig. 16). Maclean’s Cross stands out for locals because everyone passes it: ‘I love to pass the cross … it’s stood there for hundreds of years and people have walked past it … they’re just following the footsteps, to me it’s a very positive thing’ (islander Margaret). Notably it is the only cross that is visually prominent in the Heritage

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Figure 23 Iona Parish Church. The Heritage Centre occupies the adjacent Manse.

Centre exhibition produced by the islanders. In contrast, the reconstructed Abbey claustral range and associated buildings, and the ‘Welcome Centre and Shop’, are decisively linked to the Iona Community. All these communities come together and overlap in some way in their use of the Abbey Church, if for very different reasons. Here different identities are defined, albeit with a knowing deftness, for these communities must live alongside each other. In both our research findings and that of Bhattacharjee (2018), Historic Environment Scotland’s decision to lock the Abbey gates during work hours, to ensure that day-time visitors pay for entry, continues to reverberate. Island residents, the Iona Community and any other worshippers can access the Abbey for free, and the gates are open out of work hours, but there is an impact in relation to sense of ‘ownership’ / belonging – resident Harald told us ‘the island is still smarting, to a certain extent, from the locking of these gates’ – and repeat visitors cannot just wander as they liked to in the past. Aside from its more-or-less residential population, Iona is a place of visitation and connection. Many tourists come for the day or even a few hours, often exclusively committed to a visit to the Abbey. Cruise ships arrive and large groups of passengers descend with commercial guides, while other organised tour groups undertake more leisurely and specialised visits. There is also a veritable tradition of long-stay, repeat and transgenerational visitors on Iona (i.e. multiple generations of the same family coming to Iona): ‘it’s addictive’, Simon told us. Members of the same family have been coming on holiday to Iona across the centuries, not least Church of Scotland ministers, there not because of MacLeod but for a vacation. Gavin was a regular visitor until he moved to Iona, and his family had been coming there for around a century. These regular guests are recognised by ‘islanders’ as being in some senses part of the place (MacArthur 2007a, 122–4). As islander Margaret explained, one outcome is that ‘Iona remains a constant

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Figure 24 Left Peace and Adventure: The Story of Iona for Young Folk of all Ages. This 1936 book encouraged children to explore the island through a series of walks (Murray 1936).

Figure 25 Above View of St Oran’s Chapel, Reilig Odhráin cemetery, and Abbey complex beyond.

from birth until death for many people; it’s a most unusual place’. For visitors, the island’s authenticity is often bound up in the networks of relations they have developed with its place(s), people (including other regular visitors) and its very fabric. A place of meeting and of greeting, it is lovingly regarded as safe, peaceful, beautiful and welcoming, often holding special personal associations. This resonates for children and their parents (Fig. 24). The shared conspiracy and effort of getting there is a part of the magic. Gordon, Iona Community member and former resident, summed it up with ‘no-one gets to Iona by accident’, and it is a place of deliberate retreat for numerous religious communities. Molly, working for the Iona Community, sees it as ‘a place of empowering, equipping and sending’. Religious and other visitors allude to what can be characterised as the liminal qualities of the landscape that they experience (Fig. 25). This is leavened for some by its associations as the home of Celtic Christianity, however that is to be interpreted (Bradley 1999; Meek 2000) and put into contemporary practice: the numinous nature of certain places is a theme in Celtic Christianity today (Maddrell & Scriven 2016, 306, 315). The Iona Community and those who participate in its pilgrimages, its walking ‘ruminations’, develop their own connections with landscape features. Particular themes and associated religious reflections developed over decades of tours by individual pilgrimage leaders have coalesced around specific places in the landscape, crystallised in Around a Thin Place. An Iona Pilgrimage (Bentley & Paynter 2011). The importance of place-making is also evident in Bhattacharjee’s (2018) analysis of the part that visitor stories, past and present, visual and oral, embodied and performative, play in constructing knowledge of Iona and ideas about its

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Figure 26 Iona’s western coastline.

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specialness. What aspects of Iona are chosen as being special, how are these selections made, and why should visitors find the concept of special so meaningful to them? Specialness is revealed as a form of ‘home-making’, encompassing the way visitors construct, assert and demonstrate how they ‘belong’ to the island and the part they play in its day-to-day life. They are establishing a connection, a benign form of possession, creating something individual for themselves that draws on a wider ‘working consensus’ (Bhattacharjee 2018, 263, 298). She explored how Iona offers a safe, connected place with that sense of being ‘out-of-time’ (cf. Maddrell & della Dora et al. 2015, 3), qualities also important to us as we visited to conduct our research. Foster well remembers her personal distress as a researcher on Iona: unable to escape the ‘office’, the intrusion of unavoidable emails was exacerbated by the frustration of not being able to find good wi-fi signals and get the deed over and done with. Arguably, this is the perennial academic condition, but working on Iona, ‘on the edge of the ocean’ (vc, iii, 25) (Fig. 26), this invasion from afar engendered a particularly profound sense of loss and, well, contamination. Our interviewees repeatedly told us how special they think Iona is. In common with Bhattacharjee we observed the sense that Iona is layered, ‘bringing together the religious, spiritual, scenic, Romantic, rural, heritage, historic aspects’, while at the same time, ‘the boundaries of “heritage” and the “religious”, the “historic” and the “local” seem to be difficult to pin down and define’ (Bhattacharjee 2018, 23, 143). There are some parallels with case studies at other places of ‘Celtic’ Christianity (Maddrell & Scriven 2016). To the fore in our research was the sense of chronological layering and attendant identities shaped by the Abbey’s

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history: pre-Columban, Columban, Benedictine, post-Reformation, post-Iona Community, etc. There are also firm hints that there are certain parts of the island that particularly symbolise struggles for identity and autonomy among different communities, and where relationships continue to be negotiated and constructed. Recognition of Iona’s contemporary specialness for its multiple communities, especially visitors, therefore offers insights that can help us to understand the story of the St John’s Cross. Particularly, when it came to creating the replica, what motivated the people involved and what differences did it make to their lives and relationship with Iona? How we experience a place, negotiate and construct its authenticity is another way of expressing this. As we will see in Chapter 8, such an approach can also help us to understand discomforts that affect the ways that the Abbey and its contents are perceived today. If stories are important to visitors as they carve out their place on Iona for themselves (Bhattacharjee 2018, 180), carved stones are sources, vehicles and expressions of many of these biographical stories.

A ‘thick’ place For popular author Alexander McCall Smith, Iona is ‘a luminous gem of peace’, a place whose specialness is enhanced by what the Iona Community stands for, ‘the polar opposite of a London Shard or a Trump golf course’ (McCall Smith 2017, 66). Having established the Iona Community, MacLeod famously described Iona as ‘a thin place where only tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual’ (Bradley 1999a, 182). We have seen that Iona is certainly a liminal (thin) place, but from an ethnographic and biographic perspective it is rich in layers of meaning (thick, meaning deep). As others have recognised, Iona’s carved stones are a specific part of its magic: ‘Iona’s many elaborately crafted medieval sculptured stones mean that after-lives on this island are insistent presences. Iona is a site where spirit, imagination and physical exertion mingle’, according to the poet Robert Crawford (2016, ix). The next chapter concentrates on these carved stones in general and provides further context for the biography of the St John’s Cross that follows in Part II. Research into the historical archives surrounding the care of Iona’s ‘priceless’ carved stones since the nineteenth century offers a temporal perspective on our multiple communities just described. We will be able to sense the agency of its carved stones more generally in the creation and negotiation of identities. These carved stones are also a lens through which to further expose the different meanings, authorised and otherwise, that attach to Iona. Iona has long been a place that others have feelings for, and that they have been moved to find ways to care for, as we shall see in what follows.

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3 ‘Priceless monuments’ Even more important than the ecclesiastical buildings on Iona is the unique assemblage of carved stones and graveslabs. These form a collection of early Celtic and late medieval art to which there are few parallels in Europe. The collection forms an epitome, available to study in a single small locality, of a corpus of medieval art peculiar to the Western Islands and Highlands … In these Hebridean monuments Scotland possesses a heritage of which any cultured nation would be proud, but to which the modern Scotsman is almost completely indifferent … It remains one of the most urgent needs of Scottish archaeology that the best of these priceless monuments, here and elsewhere on the island, should be placed under shelter in a museum provided in Iona for the purpose. Simpson 1965, 233– 4, 236, our emphasis

Figure 27 Gravestone of an unknown West Highland warrior or chieftain who was buried at the Reilig Odhráin in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.

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In addition to its ruined Abbey, Nunnery, medieval chapels and other ancient buildings, Iona also has a massive assemblage of associated high crosses, burial monuments and ex-situ architectural sculpture. Its carved stone inheritance is so very extensive and outstanding because for many centuries its pre-eminent church supported craftsmen to finesse their skills and to generate accomplished and innovative monuments. The monks wanted to create ecclesiastical monuments that structured the living landscape of work, prayer and pilgrimage. At the same time, wealthy secular elite provided patronage because they wanted fine burial monuments for themselves and their families (Fig. 27). The outcome is an embarrassment of riches. Their care has taxed subsequent generations of owners, occupiers, curators and other interested parties. In the quote from his popular book The Ancient Stones of Scotland, W. Douglas Simpson, Chair of the Ancient Monuments Board from 1954 to 1967, captures the international and national significance of Iona’s surviving medieval carved stones, and his intense frustration and dismay that they were still not being properly cared for. Despite the pleas and efforts of early antiquarians, the first comprehensive recording and publication of Iona’s carved stones was not achieved until 1982; even then, most of the architectural sculpture and more recent monuments, such as the Duchess Cross, War Memorial and modern significant gravestones, were not included or recorded in detail (Graham 1850; Drummond 1881; Macalister 1914; rcahms 1982). At the last formal counts there were 111 early medieval and 122 late medieval stones and 435 pieces of ex-situ architectural sculpture. This encompasses the largest and most important collection of early medieval sculpture in Britain and Ireland after the monastery of Clonmacnoise in Ireland (rcahms 1982, 14; Forsyth & Maldonado 2012, 4–5). The carved stones are often highly fragmented and dispersed, if not normally far from their original site. People have continued to move them around. Such

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physical fragmentation and mobility make caring for carved stones especially problematic (Foster 2001; 2010). The stones may have a dual identity – are they are monuments or artefacts? This affects options for their protection, including which institution or part of an institution might have a locus in their care. Their ownership may anyway be ambiguous, particularly if they are loose or have been reused in another context somewhere, on- and off-site. Regardless of legal ownership, who has a moral responsibility for their care and for paying for this? More philosophically, how and where is it appropriate to look after them (should they be moved, reassembled, how far, into museums or not, etc.). These issues have all been relevant at some point in Iona’s history, and involved Iona’s multiple communities with their different interests, many cares and motivations. This chapter aims to explore Iona’s carved stone ‘landscape’, ultimately making it easier to understand what happened to the St John’s Cross and why, and why some people care and why others do not.

Early antiquarian interest From the late seventeenth-century onwards Iona became a highly desirable place for the intrepid early traveller and a new breed of antiquarian to visit: taking into account its history, it was ‘one of the greatest curiosities of the kind in the British Isles’ (Garnett 1800, 264). As travel increased and access improved from the eighteenth century, with regular tourist traffic from 1800 (see e.g. Howitt 1840), Iona’s story began to be told (Campbell & Thomson 1963; MacArthur 1999; Rackowitz 2007). These inhabited Highland landscapes were actively cultivated as terra incognita by the travel writers and antiquarians who ‘discovered’ these places, the artists who sought to represent an ‘authentic’ Scotland, and the wealthy and interested people for whom travelling to them was a form of cultural capital (rcahms 1982, 150; Fisher 2001, 5; Morrison 2003, 148). Recording carved stone inscriptions was a particular interest (Durie 2003, 52). Notable artists, composers and writers also came and left inspired, sharing this experience through their creative outputs across the western world. The poet John Keats had walked across Mull to Iona in 1818 (Cameron 2016) and others, such as Wordsworth, were moved to write about Iona (see e.g. Crawford 2016). Sir Walter Scott wrote at some length about the later medieval carved stones, evidencing, if with a critical and incredulous eye, how much he and other visitors drew on the publications of earlier travellers, in which certain topoi recur (Sir Walter Scott 1814, Laughlan 1982, 100–2). Iona was famed and framed as a cradle of Christianity, a place of learning, and of royal burial. Notably, it was also a place where hearts could be moved: That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona ! Johnson in Chapman 1930, 135

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Travellers were inspired by Johnson’s eloquence, but also his companion Boswell’s Journal of a Tour, Pennant’s Voyage, and Banks’ ‘discovery’ of nearby Staffa (Campbell & Thomson 1963; Simmons 1998). As travellers and tourists started coming to Scotland in greater numbers, they could add to their itinerary Mull, Iona and ‘often the greater lure’ Staffa’s Fingal’s Cave, ‘of all worldly wonders the most wonderful’ (Otter 1824). Beyond simply the picturesque, a boat journey could propel visitors to an awe-inspiring place romantically linked with varying degrees of credulity to the content of Ossianic poetry, and the ruins of the venerated isle (cf. Durie 2003, 38–9). For some the simple nature of Iona’s ruins, landscape, life-style or behaviour of the inhabitants disappointed, but there was a sense that it was important to ‘pay the tribute of a sigh to the departed glories of the consecrated island’ (Botfield 1830, 270). Most visitors stayed for only a few busy hours but those who stayed commented on the warmth of Hebridean hospitality, as well as the living standards. Its carved stones became a prominent dimension of the visitor attraction. Reverend Skinner’s visit in 1825, part-published here for the first time (1), brings to life what a visit involved, and the centrality of the carved stones to the Iona experience. Early visitors to Iona took a tour, regularly led by the schoolmaster, often the only islander speaking Gaelic and English. As we see from Skinner’s account, these focused on a block of land embracing the Abbey church and its associated monastic buildings, the enclosed burial ground and chapel at Reilig Odhráin, a causeway, the Nunnery, and the many carved stones. This is little different from what most of today’s day-trippers cover. There was an emphasis on understanding and appreciating the ‘tout ensemble’ (Richmond 1819 quoted in MacLean 1833, 20). People were often sceptical of the colourful stories of the ‘insular antiquarian’ (Garnett 1800, 243). These local antiquarian narratives were created by or were shaped by visitors’ need for histories that drew on local memories, superstition, topography populated by scenes from Adomnán’s seventh-century Life of St Columba, and other traditions, such as druidical activities. Stories were often attached to specific carved stones, with the thirteenth-century invented tradition of many Scottish, Irish, Norwegian and French kings being buried in Reilig Odhráin mentioned by local sources since the sixteenth century (e.g. Burrell in nls ms 2911, f23r, f24r, f25r; Sharpe 1995, 48; Fraser 2016). As the significance of Iona’s carved stones came to be better recognised, so calls emerged for their preservation. Today’s pilgrim and tourist encounter tidy ruins, a reconstructed Abbey, and a much-transformed agricultural landscape that included enclosing the Abbey ruins in 1750 (MacArthur 2007b). Perusing Iona Portrayed: The Island Through Artists’ Eyes, 1760–1960 (Christian & Stiller 2000), we gain a ready impression of the place in past times, and the ways in which the aesthetic and antiquarian qualities of Iona and its ruins were then appreciated (Fig. 32). However, these weighty, inquisitive, external gazes led to the open expression of concerns about the antiquities’ condition, whether crumbling buildings, dung- and weed-covered ground obscuring interiors and sculptured monuments, appropriation of carved stones by islanders for their gravestones,

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1 Reverend John Skinner’s day-trip to Iona 21 September 1825

John Skinner (1772–1839) was Rector of Camerton, Somerset (Coombs & Coombs 1971; chert Charterhouse Environs Research Team 2012). Like many early antiquarian travellers, he kept a diary and furiously sketched what he saw. Having slept little in his bed in a private house in Tobermory, Mull, that was ‘well peopled with the Clan of fleas’, he was summoned at 5 am by bagpipes to board his steam vessel. With the boat company pointing out the islands and other features en route, he sketched copiously while passengers around him succumbed to sea-sickness (Fig. 28). The first stop-off was Staffa, where he got onto a smaller boat hailed by his Captain. Inspecting Clam Shell Cave first, he then climbed along, ‘skirting the extremity of this land of enchantment over the stumps of broken pillars’ to Fingal’s Cave. Much moved, his ‘mute enjoyment’ was destroyed ‘by the firing of a gun, the twang of a bagpipe, and the screams and shouts of my companions to invoke the echo.’ Although only on the island for an hour, he managed six sketches.

Figure 28 Skinner’s 1825 ‘View of the coast of Mull and the Isles of Staffa and Iona in the distance’.

Typically, the passengers were met on Iona by children selling shells and pebbles. Landing at ‘Bay of Martyrs’, he walked the ‘causeway’ to the Nunnery where he drew the Abbey church, Abbess stone and various other monuments. Like other travellers, he was told of the tradition that 300 crosses had been destroyed on Iona, in his case in the lifetime of some of the islanders. Then walking on further towards the Abbey, he stopped to draw MacLean’s Cross, and then copied a gravestone in the Reilig Odhráin, where he used the relative ‘rudeness’ of sculptures to try to assess their age. Proceeding further along the causeway, he sketched the ‘beautiful’ St Martin’s Cross, noting next to it ‘the mutilated shafts of two others, one called St John’s Cross’ (Fig. 29). ‘These monuments finished, I was beginning to sketch some others, when a signal from the Steam Vessel announced that the period was elapsed which the Captain had promised me, I was therefore obliged to content myself with a farewell view of the Church. Two boys had climbed to the top of St Martin’s Cross during the time I was engaged in drawing, for the purpose of being included in the sketch, and their wish, although unknown to themselves, was gratified.’ (Fig. 30)

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‘Priceless monuments’ 51 ‘Having left half a crown with a person who seemed to be of the highest authority among the Ionians, to divide among the children, I returned on board, and while the vessel was getting under weigh [sic], took a sketch of the miserable metropolis of this once far famed island.’ (Fig. 31)

Figure 29 Skinner’s 1825 ‘St Martins & St Johns Crosses’. Left to right The crosses are what we call today St John’s, St Martin’s and St Matthew’s.

‘Our return to Tobermory was greeted by the firing of guns, in honour of a bride and bridegroom who had been passengers with us to Staffa and Iona, with the clergyman who had married them the day before.’ Extracts from British Library Add ms 33687, part of Skinner 1788–1832

Figure 30 Skinner’s 1825 ‘Cathedral at Iona’.

Figure 31 Skinner’s 1825 ‘Landing place at Iona’.

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badly behaved tourists, or damage caused by antiquarians disturbing the ground as they searched for things (e.g. Walker 1808, 141; Sir Walter Scott in 1814, Laughlan 1982; Saussure 1822; Iona Club 1833; Drummond 1870; rcahms 1982, 150–2; Rackowitz 2007, 214, 217). Visitors implored Iona’s owners, the dukes of Argyll, to act, and some began to recommend courses of preservation (Logan 1832; Laing 1856). The 8th Duke of Argyll’s responses were modest: in 1858 he arranged for his factor to fence off two enclosures within the centre of the Reilig Odhráin and to pack within it two close rows of some of the more important and vulnerable later medieval gravemarkers. These became the ‘Tombs of the kings’ and ‘Tombs of the chiefs’ (Fig. 33) (MacArthur 2007a, 67). The arrangement of stones might be left entirely to masons or quarrymen brought over from Mull (Drummond 1870, 119). As the Abbey continued to be tidied up under the Duke’s instruction, this enclosure became a dumping ground for fragments of stone monuments identified as important, not least the St John’s Cross. The Duke of Argyll also later had some stones moved and erected upright inside of the ruined and unroofed St Oran’s Chapel and Nunnery (Fig. 34). The state of the Abbey ruins was obviously also a concern. The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, a learned society, was persuaded in December 1870 after a talk by its famous Fellow, James Drummond, and concerns of Fellow

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Figure 32 Henry D. Graham’s 1848–9 drawing of the Reilig Odhráin for his Antiquities of Iona: ‘The surface of the ground is thickly studded with carved tombstones covering kings, nobles, priests and warriors’.

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‘Priceless monuments’ 53 Figure 33 ‘Tombs of the Kings and Iona Cathedral’ on a Valentine’s Series postcard from about 1880. Note the stacked carved stone fragments in the foreground, which include parts of the St John’s Cross.

Figure 34 The fifteenthcentury MacKinnon’s Cross moved to the unroofed St Oran’s Chapel, photographed by George Washington Wilson in the late nineteenth century.

William F. Skene, to appoint a Committee to discuss issues with the Duke of Argyll. This led to the Abbey being cleared of debris by 1872, and the architect Sir Robert Rowand Anderson undertook some restrained conservation between 1874 and 1876. By 1899, when the Iona Cathedral Trust was created and acquired ownership of the Abbey from the Duke of Argyll, there was then already a long history of concern about the condition of the ruins and the carved stones (MacArthur 2007a, 83–4).

New stewards, new horizons As noted in Chapter 2, the Abbey has gone through several stages of care in the twentieth century. During these major infrastructure works, 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, starting with Romilly Allen (1901). Reflecting back in 1973, a civil servant observed that ‘[s]ince before the [Second World] War Iona has been a thorn in the flesh of the Ancient Monuments Board and the Ancient Monuments Branch and until fairly recently no Board meeting was complete without a discussion on some aspect of Iona’ (dd27/4715, nrs). This discussion took place because Iona was deemed such a very important place; in 1985, when the uk first ratified the unesco World Heritage Convention, the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland suggested that Iona should be one of four more sites added to the tentative list (Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland 1985, 32). However, getting agreement about what should be done, who should do it and who should pay for works to Iona’s Abbey and related monuments, bedevilled its history, stretching the patience, tolerance and trust of all parties. There was early and general agreement of the need for a proper ‘lapidarium’,

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a museum to display the stones, but identifying a place for this was never going to be straightforward and that debate rolled on and on, complicated by sometimes irritable discussions about other issues. The Iona Cathedral Trustees appointed Alec Ritchie custodian of the Abbey from 1900 to 1930, perpetuating an earlier stewardship and guiding role, and in this capacity he protected some of the stones. For example, he moved some monuments from the Reilig Odhráin to the Abbey Kirk. The first partial fix was reroofing St Ronan’s Church to provide a home for some carved stones in 1927. This example is typical of the pattern of what was to come: works to preserve the carved stones tended to happen only if the Ministry of Works (‘the Ministry’) and its successor bodies acted themselves, at their expense or reimbursed by the Iona Cathedral Trust. The Ministry had the skilled workforce that so many of the carved stone projects required, and it dearly wanted the works to happen. However, Iona was not in its care and, as neither owner nor occupier, the Abbey was not its responsibility. But as government advisors, it could and did offer advice. For example, in 1923 Inspector of Ancient Monuments James S. Richardson and his Ministry colleagues had suggested and then drawn up plans for converting the Chapter House and part of the Cloisters into a museum for carved stones (MacIntyre 1994, 106, 110–11) (Fig. 35). Until 1979, the Ancient Monuments legislation gave the government very limited control over the works that others wanted to undertake at nationally important scheduled (protected) monuments. The government files are unclear as to whether the Abbey and each of its external crosses were scheduled in May 1914, as recommended by the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland (World War One did, after all, commence in July). The Nunnery and St Oran’s were scheduled in April 1920. Certainly, the Abbey and its claustral remains, including the crosses but excluding St Mary’s Cathedral (a church in use), were explicitly scheduled in October 1938. The Ministry had been angry when it heard about MacLeod’s restoration plans (Marshall 2014, 147). The nature and tempo of development at the Abbey changed in 1938 when the Iona Cathedral Trust welcomed George MacLeod and his Iona Community as their tenants. The Iona Cathedral Trust gave MacLeod permission for the reconstruction of the Abbey. Led by the ‘purposeful Sir George’, as Inspector of Ancient Monuments Stewart Cruden described him behind-the-scenes in 1958, archival sources reveal how the proudly independent but cautious Trust, supported by the Iona Appeal Trust created to raise funds, enabled MacLeod to reconstruct the Abbey buildings attached to the Cathedral. This programme often pitted the Iona Community, and indeed Iona Cathedral Trust, against the Ministry. Some regarded the Trustees as in hands of MacLeod. The Ministry disliked the imaginative elements of Lindsay’s restorations; Simpson (1965, 233) dryly described the outcome as ‘a certain loss in archaeological verisimilitude’. This situation is interesting because MacLeod had fundamentally different views about where the value of the island’s monuments lay, including its carved stones.

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Figure 35 Ministry of Works plans from 1923 for creating a carved stones museum by reconstructing the Chapter House at Iona.

‘History versus Mystery; Science and Art versus Faith’ MacLeod’s burgeoning Iona Community needed space to live and work. While its earliest stated plans incorporated converting the ruined Infirmary building into a museum for carved stones, this was because they wanted the stones out of the church where they ‘would tend to give the visitor an impression that it is an antiquarian show place. If the Abbey is to be the home of a living and vital Community this is an impression which we wish to avoid at all cost’ (Lindsay 1940, 20). Protestant theology would not tend to ascribe a religious quality to such material remains (Maddrell et al. 2015, 7). MacLeod described Iona as ‘the infection of the germ’ for his movement, ‘The envy of every denomination: the possession, under God, of the Church of Scotland. The place apart, that permeated half a world’ (MacLeod 1940, 17). But for all that it was a ‘unique treasure of

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our Christian heritage’, and that its carved stones might be ‘lovely’, the emphasis was on restoration to create a living place (MacLeod 1940; Iona Appeal Trust nd, probably 1950s). It was influential supporters, notably Sir David Russell and his son David F. O. Russell, who diplomatically worked with MacLeod to try to build measures to protect carved stones into the fundraising campaigns (MacIntyre 1994, 110). The project’s architect Ian Lindsay also worked deftly behind the scenes with the authorities to counteract what he sometimes clearly recognised as insufficient regard for the value of the carved stones (Lindsay was a member of the Ancient Monuments Board from 1954 to 1965). For MacLeod, there was no difference between secular and sacred, and to be a living place meant that stone sculpture designed to be outside best belonged there. It should not be moved to a museum for conservation purposes. R. B. K. Stevenson, Keeper of Antiquities at the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, reported him in 1958 as memorably saying that ‘the stones might well be allowed to decay in the open in God’s own time’ (dd27/1122, nrs) (Fig. 36). Travelling to Belfast by plane in 1971, MacLeod covered several blank postcards in dashing blue ink as he passionately expressed his views to D. F. O. Russell. He related his unhappy experience of seeing totem poles in Fiji reduced to museum objects: The Old Shafts and Crosses are not Totem Poles of an Ancient Faith ! They still live. A great day is coming to Iona – why price it? Why not charge to get into the Abbey? (as the Home of an Ancient Faith? No Sir !). ms 38516/3/1, st asc

This Fijian motif was oft-repeated by MacLeod. He had used it in July 1958, writing to Inspector of Ancient Monuments Stewart Cruden. Comparing two images in Cruden’s illustrated guidebook The Early Christian & Pictish Monuments of Scotland, just published in 1957, he observed: I belong to the other school which is horrified at gathering into museums, however hygienic, the living symbols of the Faith from this graveyard or from that, where the local children could feel themselves part of a continuing history. Surely the children in Kildalton are richer by what you see beautifully produced as plate 25 [cross in graveyard]? Whereas plate one [stones arranged in museum] is – for me – indistinguishable from a museum of Totem poles which I have seen in Fiji. In my view Christianity is in fact becoming a Totem in the minds of the majority of our people, being assisted by the museum approach. dd27/1122, nrs

To be fair, this robust and colourful rhetoric did not accurately reflect the Ministry’s practice, and MacLeod was clearly also controversial in his view that historic carved stones should simply be allowed to erode. In 1966, he also considered that early medieval Celtic bells ‘in a dark museum cupboard underground’ should be brought back into religious use (ms 38516/3/1 st asc). MacLeod’s approach and its implications for the St John’s Cross will be explored in Chapters 4 to 5; here,

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Figure 36 George MacLeod leads a procession of worshippers to the Abbey Church, past the fallen St John’s Cross, sometime between 1957 and 1960.

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suffice it to note that his interest in Iona’s carved stones was primarily grounded in and bounded by his religious philosophy. As far as he was concerned, the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland was obsessed with dead things. He saw a greater value in the Iona Appeal Trust successfully getting a grant from the Carnegie uk Trust to rebuild the Infirmary building for daily use rather than create a museum to protect carved stones. The meaning of these carved stones was evidentially highly contested. MacLeod saw the argument as being one of ‘History versus Mystery; Science and Art versus Faith’ (dd27/1122, nrs). The St John’s Cross gave new impetus to discussions about the fate of Iona’s carved stones when it fell for the final time in 1957. What was to be done? In June 1959 the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland travelled to Iona.

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There it reluctantly concluded that the St John’s Cross must be placed under cover, along with the ‘finest of the carved stones’. They made the point that none of the carved stones were in their original location, nor had they necessarily begun their life in the open. They were not keen on an alternative suggestion of rebuilding the Nunnery for this purpose – concern had been expressed about marring its beauty, as well as other issues – and of course the Infirmary was too small. Others had had ideas too. Back in 1943, visiting with friends, J. S. Richardson had been ‘dismayed by the utter want of interest shown for these treasures’. He had drawn up a detailed guidance note regarding the carved stones in the care of the Iona Trustees, including recommendations for how ancient buildings on the island could be converted to house the stones (dd27/1119, nrs). Writing to Sir David Russell in October 1943, Richardson sketched his ideas for sinking a long structure opposite the Abbey, between the side of the road and the raised ground to the west. This curious structure might have looked like a thatched blackhouse from the road, but the western length of its roof was to be glass and illuminate the carved stones it contained. In 1948, Russell commissioned Norman Robertson, a research assistant at the Ministry, to make scale models of relevant carved stones to help with the planning for converting the Infirmary into a museum, but to no immediate avail. A suitable space for any new build beyond the immediate confines of the Abbey was always going to be very difficult to identify. Lindsay explored the idea of using part of the Glebe by the Parish Church in the early 1960s, but this came to naught. Despite being too small, the Infirmary seemed the only viable option. The importance of this collection was such that in 1961 the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland was prepared to help raise funds (ambs for England, Scotland and Wales 1961, 13). The Board also wanted the Secretary of State to ‘impress upon the Iona Trustees their responsibility, legal and moral, for the care and custody of this unique collection of medieval Hebridean monuments’, and their need to respond with proposed plans for a lapidarium. The Trustees of course had high-ranking, full-time jobs, and limited opportunities to therefore take any action (MacArthur 2007a). The Ancient Monuments Board persisted: ‘We shall not rest content however until all the monuments in Iona have been afforded the high degree of protection which we feel to be essential’ (ambs for England, Scotland and Wales 1964, 15). It was 1964 before the Infirmary technically became a museum, and 1965 before the Iona Community agreed that it might be used exclusively for the stones, which the Ministry used its skilled labour to transport there. The journey to this point was a very long one and was still only ever regarded as a reluctant stop-gap by the funders and regulators because the space within the Infirmary was regarded as inadequate; in 1967 the Ancient Monuments Board was still hoping that funds could be found to house more of the most important carved stones from the Reilig Odhráin (ambs for England, Scotland and Wales 1961, 13; 1967, 12). MacLeod’s construction of a new identity for Iona Abbey as a place that was once again mainstream in Christian life was therefore at odds with those who

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placed an emphasis on its cultural significance as national patrimony and a place of international archaeological, historical and art-historical significance. For these people, the prime objective in this context was preservation of the material fabric of the monuments. This included the invisible archaeological evidence for the Columban and later monastery. These are the types of values reflected in the legislation, which allowed for the designation of places as ancient monuments or listed buildings. The aim was not just to protect a significant artistic and ancient resource for the benefit of scholars, but also tourists and pilgrims to Iona. The tensions between the different value-sets once more ignited in the late 1960s when the Iona Community sought to create a Guest House, providing a tea room and lavatories for visitors. The Ancient Monuments Board did not want to see a new build within the vallum (enclosing earthworks) of the Columban monastery. Yes, they were concerned about the destruction of archaeology, but they were also worried about the visual impact on the overall amenity of the site. This is what planners and heritage professionals refer to as ‘setting’. The Board disagreed strongly with MacLeod’s view that being ‘for the living’ meant that ‘archaeological crime’ (destruction) was acceptable (dd27/4715, nrs). For MacLeod this was evidence that the Board and Ministry simply did not understand his revised church and its needs: it ‘is not a firm of Wayside Caterers’, he complained to D. F. O. Russell in 1968. More generally he was aggravated by the complications of the Iona situation, ‘what with five or six different bodies to consult’, as well as having to seek permission from locals’ (ms 38516/3/1, st asc). With only the core of the monastery around the Abbey scheduled, the Ancient Monuments Board was unable to oppose the building in the early 1970s of what is now the Welcome Centre. To the Board’s frustration, the Argyll Council ignored its vocal opposition (ambs for England, Scotland and Wales 1963, 13; 1971, 4–5). After the fact, the scheduled area was extended in 1971 to embrace the entire monastery, and the Cathedral and restored monastery was listed; the Council designated the Iona Conservation Area in 1973 to protect the setting of the Abbey and Nunnery. Carved stones entered this dispute, for in 1969 the Board considered a proposal that the Infirmary could be freed up to become the Guest House if it took the Nunnery into care and made it into the long-planned larger lapidarium (amb for Scotland 1970, 4). The idea was to restore the Nunnery’s Refectory range for this purpose and use St Ronan’s alongside it. But the Trust had reservations about passing the Nunnery over at this stage. Since the 1940s MacLeod had looked ‘with wondering eyes at the Nunnery’ with the idea that it might become a six-month summer hostel for youths (MacIntyre 1994, 220). In about 1976 the Iona Nunnery Preservation Group had been founded with the dream of rebuilding the Nunnery, but they were persuaded by the Iona Cathedral Trust to divert their efforts to fundraising for the preservation of the ruins and gardens, to create ‘an atmosphere of quiet and contemplation’ (Iona Cathedral Trust 1979). As a consequence of this change of plan, the Nunnery ceased to be a possibility for the lapidarium.

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Island voices I am quite aware that the present Kings and Chiefs are not in their original places and look rather like sardines on a piece of toasted asphalt. We want no more mistakes. All these stones are gravestones of fellow members with us in the Living and the Eternal Communion of Saints. They are not antiquarian Totems and should not be further disturbed. George MacLeod to D. F. O. Russell, May 1961, ms 38516/3/2

It would be tempting to characterise the differences between the Iona Community / Iona Cathedral Trust and the Ancient Monuments Board / Ministry in terms of periphery versus centre relationships, but none of the Iona bodies and very few of their representatives were strictly local to Iona. Influential individuals like D. F. O. Russell owned a house on Iona, but they too came from the Scottish mainland. Unfortunately, beyond the stories that were relayed to early visitors, it is hard to establish the islanders’ view of what is special about the carved stones. Stories about Iona have invariably been penned by visitors, although a guidebook printed by a local individual was for sale to visitors in the 1790s, and a 1771 source did have knowledge of Gaelic and could therefore draw on local written sources as well as speak to the islanders in their own language (Sharpe 2012, 172, 198, 259). The islander dimension also tends to get blanked out of what visitors today think is special about Iona, possibly because some of the inevitable trappings of their presence are somehow counter to visitor expectations (Bhattacharjee 2018, 240) (Fig. 37), an issue that is again not new (Rackowitz 2007, 217–18; MacArthur 2001, 61–3; e.g. Otter 1824, 239–40). In relation to carved stones, there are two exceptions. The first and most obvious exception is Alec Ritchie, the island artist who also acted as custodian at the Abbey and who with his wife made such celebrated use of the medieval carved stones in their Iona Celtic Art. ‘The whole area was his Baillwick and his efficient guardianship was one of love’ (Gilbert Innes 1959 cited in dd27/1122, nrs) (Fig. 38). As mentioned earlier, Ritchie was active in conserving the island’s stones. The second is sensibilities in relation to the carved stones at the Reilig Odhráin. Referred to in MacLeod’s quote, above, this is the islanders’ place of burial. Even now, it is still locals rather than the Council that digs the graves in the old part of the graveyard (E. M. MacArthur pers comm). When antiquarians first encountered Iona, the island graveyard was packed with medieval monuments, so evocatively depicted in Henry Graham’s 1850 illustration (see Fig. 32), albeit after the Iona Club had in 1833 excavated ‘a considerable number of finely carved tombstones … which none of the inhabitants had ever seen before’, and removed ‘modern’ monuments (Iona Club 1833, 5–6). As in other parts of Scotland, islanders had appropriated many of the medieval monuments for family gravestones (Foster & Jones 2008, 219–20); burials of the ‘poor cottager’ mixed with those of the ‘glorious line of the kings’, complained Logan (1832). They were now ‘theirs’ and families were unhappy if they were

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Figure 37 Jonquil Alpe, Sally Foster’s mother, produced a watercolour of the Village Street during a holiday in 2018 – she did not include the waste bins in front of the houses.

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Figure 38 ‘Holidays in the West Highlands. A guide [Alec Ritchie] describing the tombs of the kings on Iona’ (Reilig Odhráin), as illustrated in The Graphic, a popular weekly magazine. Anon 1892, drawn by Sydney P. Hall

moved, as reported in the Inverness Courier for 1870 (Anon 1870). The most important art-historical examples were eventually moved for their protection into the Abbey; come 1973, Cruden sensed there would be ‘rioting’ if more of the carved stones were lifted and moved. The Trustees were also concerned about public reactions. The Ministry judged that it would not make a difference to the locals that the locations of the reused gravemarkers were recent because they still would not want them to be moved. Replacing them with fibreglass replicas was considered but rejected. Our ethnographic work, not surprisingly, picked up how special the graveyard is for islanders, and some of the existing tensions with visitor behaviour, and lack of grounds maintenance by the Council. In 1964, when without consultation the Iona Community removed two sections of enclosing wall, the Iona District Councillor wrote to the Ministry to express concern about the surge of tourists and holiday-makers ‘walking over the graves and bringing deterioration to the burial places’ (dd27/1116, nrs). (This event still rankled one of our interviewees.) These examples hint at the intangible ways in which the ancient carved stones in the graveyard-in-use were valued by the families of those buried there.

Dead or alive? To Iona’s ‘burden’ we must add its ‘priceless’ collection of carved stones, their issues and their opportunities. Earlier generations of our ‘multiple communities’ have taken a strong interest, whether conscious of their value as a ‘cultural resource’ or

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not. Differing approaches have been colourfully and forcefully expressed. Their fate absorbed, some might say distracted, the energies of George MacLeod, ‘one of Scotland’s most charismatic and influential figures of the twentieth century’ (McCall Smith 2017, 67). At the time of writing, Iona’s carved stones are still dispersed, reflecting the ongoing curatorial challenges. Historic Environment Scotland’s highly acclaimed site museum in the so-called Infirmary Building, tucked away at the back of the Abbey complex, displays the highlights of the carved stone collection. Many other stones are fixed to walls throughout the Abbey Church and its cloisters, and inside St Oran’s Chapel. Some architectural sculptures are stored high up in the rafters of the Church. Some of the high crosses and/or their bases are in situ outside the west end of the Abbey, and there are other individual crosses bases in situ on the island. What were deemed the less significant later medieval monuments are still in situ in the graveyard at Reilig Odhráin. Most other portable carved stone monuments are in storage, in St Ronan’s Church, or in the Fionnphort Centre just across the water on Mull. There is also the occasional example still in private care, including at the Duke of Argyll’s home in Inverary Castle, and the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh has one later medieval example. This arrangement may not yet be the ideal, but the challenges and opportunities have tested the Iona Cathedral Trust, Iona Community, Historic Environment Scotland and its predecessor bodies, and other national bodies, for over a century. Iona’s carved stones clearly matter and have been a live issue for centuries. This is the context in which we will now begin to explore the life of the St John’s Cross, particularly its 1970 concrete replica.

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Creating and cultivating the cross

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Figure 39 The soaring replica of the St John’s Cross.

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4 Formation and reformation

W

elcome

Here in Iona’s New Jerusalem, in its most Holy of Holy places, I am St Columba’s steadfast companion. Spreading my arms, I stretch from the earth to the light of heaven, from whence angels fly down to visit his grave. I am Columba, I am Christ; I am a replica of Christ’s Cross, I am also a first. My glorious body is the accomplished harmony of a worshipful Christian community, of practised minds and able hands. Men extracted me from a distant coastal quarry, lifted me onto a raft and towed me over the sea. The sailors were terribly nervous they might lose me! Dragged on rollers along the track from the beach to the monastery, I heard many tongues as people discussed what I was to become, and where I was to be planted. Craftsmen sharpened their iron tools and patiently worked me, with endless skill and devotion, face-by-face, turning me over in beds of sand. The monks instructed them, drawing for inspiration on the church’s metalwork and manuscripts, as well as stone crosses they had seen in Northumbria when visiting Iona’s daughter houses there. The monks offered their prayers, so excited as they watched me slowly emerge. Then it was time to erect timber scaffolding. My shaft was hoisted into its foundations, then my cross-head was lowered and slotted into this. To further adorn my already studded body, Iona metalworkers fixed brilliant jewelled panels to my head and shaft, elevated, above easy reach. It was a glorious day when the monks first formally gathered to welcome me to the world; their chants, singing and prayers now energise me daily. Through rain and sun, and by the light of the stars, I bedazzle monks and pilgrims. My shadow tracks the hours and, come eventide, I project the sign of the cross onto my dear Columba’s shrine. Believe in me, feel my aura, and I will bestow Christ’s healing. St John’s Cross (Fig. 39)

As every visitor to Iona Abbey knows, the St John’s Cross just kept on falling to the ground. At least four times, in fact. This chapter explores key biographical moments from its creation to that last devastating collapse during a storm in 1957. The cross first fell very early in its life. The technical and artistic achievements of its ambitious and exquisitely beautiful original design, combined with the innovative, experimental solutions to its reconstruction, are encapsulated in Salvation, wounds and resurrection. While strictly two biographical moments – fall and remaking – the singular outcome is the cross’ unique form and unparalleled complexity. A short section considers the uncertain period that led to its Fragmentation. Fragmented it certainly was by the time of its Antiquarian rebirth, earliest copies, as its existence, beauty, archaeological and art-historical significance were gradually recognised, leading ultimately to the cross’s physical reconstruction in 1927. This is the point at which the first small-scale copies were made, and the

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circulation of the St John’s Cross in three-dimensional form began around the world. There it stood for fifty years, a Silent witness to the recreation of the Abbey by the Iona Community. Well, almost, for it fell in 1951, was reconstructed in 1954, and then fell again. It was as The Fallen Cross that the concern about its future led to the creation of the concrete replica (Chapter 5).

Salvation, wounds and resurrection Iona’s intellectual, spiritual, political and artistic impact on the western Christian world in the long eighth-century cannot be under-estimated. The monastery was one of the leading Irish early Christian churches, its monks played a key role in converting the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, and it also dominated the organisation of the Pictish Church of eastern Scotland (rcahms 1982, 12; Fraser 2009). Its abbots were some of the most important people in Ireland and northern Britain, none more so than abbot, scholar and international statesman, Adomnán (died ad 704). It is through the lens of Adomnán that we learn about the life of its founder St Columba, one hundred years earlier (Wooding 2010). His Life of the saint gives us an unparalleled, vivid insight into the nature and life of an early medieval monastery (Sharpe 1995; Macdonald 1997). We really feel we can picture ourselves on the island, in the minds of its inhabitants, and it is hardly surprising that the mental maps and magic of centuries of visitors to Iona have been shaped by this source. Sacred from its coastline to its monastic core, Iona was also a lived-in and economically productive landscape, and indeed seascape. Its inhabitants needed to feed themselves, and to build and maintain the fabric of the monastery. Their focus though was living in a (male-only) community, practising Christian worship, promoting Christian values to a wider society, and serving the needs of visiting pilgrims and the dead. Some of the monks and travelling craftspeople temporarily welcomed into their fold were also skilled artists. With the support of their community and access to wider resources and patronage, their craft workshops produced illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, fine ecclesiastical metalwork such as reliquary shrines, and sculptured monuments such as the St John’s Cross. They probably also had access to fine ecclesiastical textiles (cf. Coatsworth 2007). The monastery kept annals – written summaries of key events happening in the ambit of its world – and the monks received, composed, read and presumably copied biblical and patristic sources, liturgy, hymns and poetry (Wooding 2010, 13; Clancy & Márkus 1995). The St John’s Cross was therefore born in a particularly creative period. The further evidence that follows in this section would not be possible without the detailed observation, recording and analysis of Iona’s monuments by the rcahms. It also draws on the combined scholarship of academics who argue for the development, at the heart of Iona’s monastery, of a complex of novel architectural features that explicitly modelled themselves on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. This theological artifice had its roots in ideas that Adomnán first

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advanced, as evidenced in his writings. Metaphorically, he promoted the concept of a ‘New Jerusalem’, or a place of heavenly salvation on earth. Substituting places directly associated with Christ’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection in Jerusalem, the monks on Iona boldly envisioned a series of monumental architectural gems centred on the burial place of Columba. At a time when the cult of the cross was very important in early medieval Europe (Fisher 2001, 8–9; Jensen 2017, 97–122), major religious sites had begun making explicit allusions in their design to the topography of holy sites in both Jerusalem and Rome, a tradition that has a long legacy (Wharton 2006). What happened on Iona then influenced Irish practice more widely (Ó Carragáin 2010, 78–80). The idea was that the embodied experience of the pilgrims was linked to the concept and perception of the salvation they could achieve. Intellectually, this configuration created a bridge from what the monks would have regarded as the centre of the world – Jerusalem – to Iona, on the far ‘edge of the ocean’ (O’Loughlin 1997; 2010; vc, iii, 25) (Fig. 40). Aiming for the burial place of Columba, the St John’s Cross in front of it was at the heart of the action and critical to that experience. While the concept of emulating New Jerusalem on Iona may have begun with Adomnán at the beginning of the eighth century, there was a massive and transformative investment in monastic infrastructure and associated ecclesiastical furnishings and apparatus in the middle of the century. Iona’s workshops had nurtured and procured the services of technically and artistically superlative metalworkers, glassworkers, scribes, illuminators and masons, and through its networks and patronage could access the necessary local and exotic raw materials. The most likely context for this pulse of activity is the translation and enshrinement of some of Columba’s relics, some of which toured Ireland in 753 or 767 (Bourke 1997; Ó Floinn 1997; see also rcahms 1982, 47). Such relics might comprise his bones, excavated from the monastic burial ground, or his personal effects, such as a liturgical fan or psalter. They were primarily destined for display, protection and reverence in the monastery’s main church (rcahms 1982, 42). This activity was possibly prompted by the 150th anniversary of Columba’s death in ad 747. The Lindisfarne Gospels may have been created when St Cuthbert was translated in ad 698, and there are strong grounds for suggesting the Book of Kells was likewise created for St Columba’s translation (Fisher 1994, 46). Dispersed across museums in Europe, we have only hints of the sorts of precious-metal, ornate reliquaries that Iona produced (Campbell et al. 2020). In addition to the St John’s Cross, which the rcahms dated on art-historical grounds to the mid-eighth during its Iona survey (see above), the stone shrine-chapel now known as St Columba’s Shrine and the paved roadway are now reliably dated to this period. It is also likely that the monastery’s surrounding enclosures were reworked about this time with the creation of massive d-shaped banks and ditches, distinctively rectilinear in plan with rounded corners. These open on the east to expansive views across the sound and the mountains of Mull, which may have been highly symbolic (Campbell 2019). In the mid-eighth century, Iona therefore created the world’s first ringed high cross, the first Irish stone shrine-chapel, the first paved

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c

b

a Figure 40 a A conceptual map of the location of eighth-century Iona in relation to Jerusalem. b An indicative plan of Iona’s early medieval abbey area. c An enlarged view of the core components of its ‘New Jerusalem’ layout.

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a After O’Loughlin 1997, figs 3–4). b and c After Campbell & Maldonado 2020 forthcoming.

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monastic road in the Insular world, and also the first, distinctively Columban, d-shaped vallum monasterii (Ó Carragáin 2010, 72–9; Campbell & Maldonado 2020 forthcoming). This degree of activity was not ‘megalomania’ on the part of grandiose monks, it was what befitted St Columba (see Fisher 1994, 46). Beaching their boats on the sacred isle, eighth-century pilgrims therefore walked along a road through spaces that progressively became more holy. First, they encountered a farming landscape interspersed with burial places and crosses of some form. In the later seventh century, Adomnán describes three crosses ‘still standing today’ that had been erected on the island to commemorate events in the life of Columba (vc, i, 45, iii, 25). By the point pilgrims entered the vallum, having just walked through the burial ground of St Oran’s with its mica-speckled high cross and timber chapel (assumed), we know the road was made up of large stone slabs and very well engineered indeed. This led them to their ultimate destination, the door of a clay-bonded stone shrine-chapel. This tiny rectangular building was entered through a west doorway framed by antae, skeuomorphs of timber buttresses on the corners. Two subterranean stone-lined long cists on either side of the interior are probably contemporary with the construction of the stone chapel and presumably contained the bones of Columba and perhaps Adomnán. Unusually for the time, some illumination possibly even came through a glass window (Campbell et al. 2019, 329), perhaps shining onto a composite stone shrine at the east end. The saint’s burial place was the focus for later burials of other important early ecclesiastics, some of which had gravemarkers. Archaeologists found two of them buried in plank and log coffins, the scientific dating of which supports a mid-eighth-century date for the stone shrine (Maldonado 2019, 124–5; E. Campbell pers comm). We do not know if any of the crosses had a name at this time, but the St John’s Cross, with its box-like base, stood directly in front of the entrance to the shrine. Slightly later, St Martin’s and then St Matthew’s crosses were erected very close by, all within reach of a water source that was perhaps a survival from a pre-Christian ritual site. Not far away were the rest of the monastic buildings. Foremost of these was the main church. This must have stood under the present nave of the Abbey church while to the north, in the modern cloister area, was a monks’ cemetery. Processing out of their church’s west door, the monks would have looked across an open and at least partly paved courtyard towards Tòrr an Aba. Here on the summit Columba had had his timber writing cell; the crosses and shrine-chapel punctuated this view. In the New Jerusalem model, constructions on Iona mirror key features in Jerusalem (see Fig. 40) (Campbell & Maldonado 2020 forthcoming, fig. 12): the Basilica (church), an open courtyard (Adomnán’s plateola) containing rocky Golgotha (Tòrr an Aba) where Christ and the two thieves were crucified (the crosses), and a building that contains the Edicule erected above Christ’s place of burial (the shrine-chapel) (Ó Carragáin 2010, figs 74 and 75 for plan and reconstruction of Constantinian Holy Sepulchre). The well may stand for Jerusalem’s shrine of the Chalice, sharing its life-giving properties. As in Jerusalem, Iona’s religious core,

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Figure 41 Subtle differences in height exist between the existing paved stone road leading to St Columba’s Shrine, where the photographer stands, and the base of the crosses. To the right is the well, with its reconstructed surround.

like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was reached along a stone road. Found in 1959 and exposed in 1962–3, this acquired the name of Street of the Dead. (rcahms 1982, 142–3 make a persuasive case that the road that had this name was later and followed another route.) Future archaeological work is necessary to establish the location and relative heights of the last stretches of the original road and the bases of the crosses along its route; St Martin’s Cross is on higher ground than the shrine-chapel and St John’s Cross, and the level of the current (altered) road is lower than St Martin’s Cross (Fig. 41). In the mid-eighth century, Iona’s poetry and sculpture evidences an unusually early devotion to the Mother of God (Sharpe 1995, 80). Virgin and Child iconography is prominent on Iona’s first stone high cross, St Oran’s. This stood where visiting pilgrims entered the monastery’s outer enclosure. Is it a coincidence that this stood at what in the ‘New Jerusalem’ model, as Campbell and Maldonado point out, would be the equivalent of St Mary’s chapel in Jerusalem?

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This architectural complex therefore combined original and pioneering stone monuments with timber buildings. We would be foolish to doubt the sophistication of the latter, with considerable efforts made to procure timber from the mainland of Scotland. Scotland may be renowned for its elaborate and distinctive prehistoric stone architecture, yet it had a parallel and preponderant timber tradition. The main church is thought to have been a substantial wooden temple, as depicted in folio 202v of the Book of Kells. But even if the combined translation of Columba’s relics and layout of a New Jerusalem pioneered new stone architectural forms, these nodded to timber prototypes. We therefore have a good sense of how these stone innovations were, to invert Joseph Anderson’s memorable description of contemporary Pictish art, the work of practised minds and able hands (Anderson 1881, 56). The people involved were extremely well connected, in all senses. These connections become even more obvious if we consider the ways in which the St John’s Cross was meaningful and reflect further on what role it played in this vision for a New Jerusalem. First though we should introduce the form and appearance of the St John’s Cross, and the basis of the argument that its complex ringed form is secondary (rcahms 1982, 201–4). The elegant, restrained St John’s Cross is truly impressive (Figs 42–4). Standing at 4.85 m excluding its tenon in its present form, it is exceedingly tall; at 2.17 m across its arms, it is the second-widest example in Britain and Ireland. Composite from the very start, like the earlier St Oran’s Cross, its interlocking shaft and head, with its mortice behind the central boss, were made of greenishgrey chlorite schist. Geological analysis tells us this was sourced, quarried and transported from the mainland near Doide, Loch Sween. Quarrying such large blocks of stone was a tremendous feat. This suggests the monks had access to better boats than skin curraghs (Stevenson 1956, 88 fn 25); the possibilities must also include the use of a seaworthy raft. The idea for a free-standing stone cross came from Northumbria, but Fisher (1994) suggests that the Ionan monks, lacking experience in stone architecture, needed to bring in sculptors, ‘mere executants’, who worked under their instruction. An unanswered question is how long it would have taken the monastic workshop to develop the requisite masonry skills, and it is clear that their surviving work was experimental in nature (see Kelly 1991 for an alternative view). Fisher suggested that Pictish masons would already have the necessary skills. The newly discovered Pictish Columban monastery at Portmahomack on the Tarbat peninsula in north-eastern Scotland would have been one home for such craftsmen. Certainly, the Nigg cross-slab, produced on the Tarbat peninsula, and the St Andrews Sarcophagus, Fife, share some very close artistic traits with the St John’s Cross. Art historians date these monuments, as well as St Oran’s and St Martin’s, to the mid to late eighth-century. But it cannot have been long after its erection that the St John’s Cross fell and was reconstructed in eight pieces, which included the addition of a ring, and, it is argued, new foundations (Fig. 45). The evidence for this remaking, and skill

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Figure 42 rcahms illustration of the surviving components of the east face of the St John’s Cross, reconstructed by the draughtsman.

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Figure 43 rcahms illustration of the surviving components of the west face of the St John’s Cross, reconstructed by the draughtsman.

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0

1 metre

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76 My life as a replica Figure 44 rcahms sections and plan of the a north face, b east face and c plan of the base of the St John’s Cross, including the roughed-out millstone that forms one of the foundation stones.

a

0

1 metre

b

c

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Figure 45 right Two possible reconstructions of the first phase of the St John’s Cross (with b more likely), compared to its secondary form after repairs and the insertion of the ring (c). The nature of the Phase 1 basal structure and foundations is not known, nor if there was a joint at the junction of shaft and lower arm in the first phase. The evidence for layers of soil beneath the socketstones was observed by J. R. Scott in 1969

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a

(see Chapter 5). The ‘charcoal’ is probably a buried peat-rich black soil, often with charcoal, that archaeologists have found elsewhere, the lowest deposit above the natural sand (E. Campbell pers comm).

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b

c

that went into making this revolutionary finding, are covered in Chapter 6. Significant here is the energy, further experimentation and technical skill that went into repairing the St John’s Cross. Its top arm, lower arm and basal shaft tenon were clearly irreparably damaged in the fall. Repair involved creating massive new socket-stones as foundations for the cross, one of the basal stones being an unfinished millstone. The lower and undecorated part of the cross’ shaft was enclosed for extra stability within a box-like, composite basal structure, resembling the construction of composite stone shrines. A new upper top arm complete with finial was added, and four ring quadrants were inserted between the cross-arms. The finial and ring were all made from a different stone, a more local silver-grey

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garnetiferous mica-schist, from the Ross of Mull. The replacement lower arm has not been found but was presumably also Mull mica-schist. Insertion of this new lower arm resulted in a shortening of the shaft, because a tenon had to be created for the mortice of the new arm to sit on (the whole cross was further shortened if the original lower arm was originally double-curved, like the other arms). The appearance of the St John’s Cross had therefore been transformed. It was shorter, clearly repaired, and combined two types of stone with different material qualities (a difference that would have been masked if the cross was ever painted, which we do not know, though see Fig. 15 for a reconstruction). There was, however, a symmetry to the introduction of this new material. It also included a ring, the lower quadrants designed to offer some structural support, the upper arms, with their shallower joints, simply aesthetic and symbolic. In both its forms, the St John’s Cross and its associated New Jerusalem landscape were experienced by multiple communities, primarily the monks who inhabited Iona, and pilgrims invited into parts of the monastery. These were the audiences of the St John’s Cross for whom it and indeed the wider complex ‘performed’ and ‘spoke’. The cross was experienced outside, as in contemporary Jerusalem (Jensen 2017, 63). Current understandings of how this place had meaning for the people who inhabited and visited it is shaped by scholarship on the iconography of the crosses, contemporary liturgical practices and thinking about the open physical environment in which the crosses were designed to be experienced. For the monks, if not also most of the pilgrims, Iona’s ‘New Jerusalem’ was encountered in community, and in a community that acted and interacted liturgically with these monuments through singing and chanting (Ó Carragáin 2003, 142–4). Their iconography was designed to be read in a ‘sun-wise’ movement so that different messages were illuminated and became the focus at different times of the daily schedule, in different seasons and in different weathers (Ó Carragáin 2003, 142–4; 2011; Pulliam 2013; Gefreh 2015; 2017). The materiality of the monuments connected monastic routines with a daily cycle of salvation, very evident in the choice and arrangement of figural scenes (Hawkes 2005). We do not know how and when pilgrims were admitted to the cult site, and what existing practices they joined in or were specifically devised for them; we can fairly assume that events were structured, not least on saint’s days when larger numbers of people might visit (9 June for Columba, 23 September for Adomnán). Processing together, singing together, the monuments were simultaneously brought alive by the liturgical soundscape and the embodied encounters through which the monuments ‘enchanted’ and ‘spoke’ to receptive audiences. Some of that action, mood and intended effect is captured in Cantemus in omni die, a hymn written by an Ionan monk in about ad 700 (see three extracts below from Clancy & Márkus 1995, 181–92): Let us sing every day, harmonising in turns, together proclaiming to God a hymn worthy of holy Mary

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By a woman and a tree the world first perished; by the power of a woman it has returned to salvation

Let us call on the name of Christ, below the angel witnesses, that we may delight and be inscribed in the letters in the heavens.

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Figure 46 This postcard from before 1955, prior to the completion of the Abbey’s rebuild, gives a sense of lost views towards the crosses.

None of this is to exclude quiet and private encounters, when someone might for example prostrate themselves in front of a cross, but the meanings attached to their subjects were already informed by communal engagement. What specifically then might St John’s Cross mean, and what is there about its materiality and environment that will have shaped this and its ‘voice’? The Cross was deliberately sited so that its evening shadow shone onto the entrance-wall of the shrine-chapel. Towards evening is also the time when two circular metal inserts on the west face, the central one perhaps a gold and silver equivalent to Kildalton’s east boss (Fisher 1994, 45), smouldered with luminosity. Applications to the centre of the prominent boss on the east face too cannot be ruled out (I. G. Scott pers comm). In The Dream of the Rood, the poet describes the ‘tree of glory … vividly shining, got out with gold; gems had worthily wreathed the Ruler’s tree’. Large Abbey buildings now occlude light and views to the St John’s Cross and shrine-chapel from the east, so it is difficult to get an accurate sense of the intended visual impacts approaching from, for example, the monastery’s main church. This was on lower ground, and it is conceivable that from certain angles the St John’s Cross looked to be a part of Tòrr an Aba behind it, which may have accentuated allusions to Golgotha (Fig. 46). (It is possible that an early medieval cross stood on Tòrr an Aba, which, after all, bears the closest topographical similarity to where Christ was crucified.) One of the key views of the St John’s Cross had to be when leaving the shrine-chapel. At certain times of day little more than its stark outline might be visible, but having stepped outside,

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Figure 47 The presentday view from inside the shrine-chapel, looking towards St John’s Cross, with swallow, and Tòrr an Aba behind.

with the east face of the imposing Cross immediately in front, its physical power would have been palpable (Fig. 47). Missing from the east face of the 1970 replica is the original’s prominent central stone boss (pp. 140–1). In stark contrast to the other Iona crosses, the St John’ Cross stands out for its lack of figural iconography. The exceptions are the two entwined figures on the added finial, possibly Jacob wrestling with the angel (rcahms 1982, 204), and tiny Virgin and Child groups tentatively identified on either side of the primary top arm (Fisher 2001, 18). These look convincing if you visit the Discovery Programme scan, but they are very worn and therefore could be deceptive (Fig. 48). There is an intense serenity about its symmetrical panels of decoration. These comprise predominantly interlace and snake-bosses. The

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Figure 48 Detail of the Discovery Programme scan of the St John’s Cross, showing possible repeated Virgin and Child motif on the lower part of the upper crossarm. Visible also are the mortices for the missing ring of the cross, a later ‘cup’ and ‘slit’ on one side of the upper crossarm, and grooves cut in the twentieth century to receive clamps for refixing the fragments.

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Rupertus Cross of the third quarter of the eighth century, made for an Ionan monk by an Anglo-Saxon jeweller, offers ready parallels (Fisher 2001, 15, illus on p. 172). Fisher makes the case for this snake-and-boss motif being associated with Columba, so there is a sense in which St John’s Cross is both Columba and Christ. The bosses mirror gems on the True Cross, as it was adorned upon its discovery in fourth-century Jerusalem, while the serpents can evoke redemption and resurrection (Fisher 2001, 16, 19). Of all Iona’s surviving high crosses, we arguably have the sense that viewers’ attention is being drawn to the St John’s Cross as just that, Christ’s cross. With all crosses being a replica of the original cross, there is nonetheless only one Christ’s cross in the Jerusalem model. St Martin’s Cross has iconography ‘figuring salvation’ and its stepped base is of a type that art historians suggest mirrored the True Cross (Hawkes 2005; Fisher 2005, 86). But this is argued to be later than St John’s – we have an evolving landscape to consider. If St Martin’s Cross represented the True Cross in Iona’s New Jerusalem scenario, then it only came to do so after the St John’s Cross was erected, fell, was repaired and its ring inspired the form of St Martin’s. Given where St John’s stood, it seems inconceivable that the new cross subtracted from St John’s performance and significance, even as a slighted monument. Standing by the shrine-chapel, the St John’s Cross must have had its own special functions. Conceivably the box-like base of St John’s Cross held relics; there are also slots in the transverse arms of St Martin’s Cross designed to receive something, although it is unclear how inserts would be fixed in place. As in Jerusalem, corpses were perhaps laid by St John’s Cross en route to burial (Ó Carragáin 2010, 84). What is thought to be the lid of a similar base at St Oran’s has a basin-like hollow from the rubbing of stones by

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pilgrims and tourists as they individually made a prayer (rcahms 1982, n. 99). While the Gaelic traditions associated with the clach-bràth are modern, similar practices in Ireland, such as Inishmurray, are thought to have early medieval origins. Ryan Lash illustrates the historical and contemporary ‘enchantment of stone’ that such sensory and practical engagement elicits (Lash 2018). The other half of the St John’s Cross lid is missing so we do not know if something similar happened here, but the presence of accessible relics that people could ‘touch’ in some way would have been important. We can imagine it perhaps covered in textiles for special ceremonies. We need to remember that these were crisply carved, new sculptures. Any ‘pastness’ (see Chapter 7) was captured in their form and its allusion to the True Cross rather than in how old the fabric appeared. We can scarcely imagine the devastating emotional impact of the fall of the pristine cross, nor what people thought about its repaired, less-than-perfect state. Given the theological context, we can more readily imagine that the fall and subsequent visible wounds of this cross might have been turned around to positive Christian effect. The cross, like Christ, was resurrected. Symbolically, the addition of a ring might represent Christ’s halo, although alternative ideas also exist, such as referencing wreathed monograms symbolising Christ on Roman sarcophagi (rcahms 1982, 18; e.g. Jensen 2017, 137). If the figure on the finial added to replace the broken top arm is Jacob wrestling with the angel, then perhaps this introduced further symbolism, and perhaps wit. Old Testament Jacob had his hip ‘put out’ in his tussle with the angel but soldiered on: ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed’ (The Holy Bible 1995, Genesis 32:24–30). Whatever the intended significance, this innovation immediately became an icon – copied at first on Islay at Kildalton, then Iona’s St Martin’s, Ireland, and later the world. Meantime, monks and pilgrims kept coming to St Columba’s burial place and its guardian cross.

Fragmentation If the rcahms reconstruction of the St John’s Cross is correct about the conjunction of three mortices in the renewed lower cross-arm (see Chapter 6), this experiment would seem to verge on structural folly. It seems hard to believe that this tri-partite joint lasted for very long in an environment periodically exposed to the full force of Atlantic gales. How much remained in place by the Reformation of the midsixteenth century is therefore unknown, but there is no known evidence that any of the high crosses were destroyed because of religious strife (Stevenson 1928). We cannot know the full trajectory of fragmentation of St John’s Cross. We do know that when Welsh scholar Lhuyd drew features of note at the Abbey in 1699, he recorded what was visible of the in-situ shaft (Campbell & Thomson 1963, pls xiv, xv) (Fig. 49). The Governor of the Isle of Man visiting just before, in 1688, provides us with the first written description of the St John’s Cross and its immediate context:

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Figure 49 Lhuyd’s 1699 drawing of St John’s Cross: it omits the lower portion of the west face and the east face is upside down.

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Formation and reformation 83 On the west end [outside the church] stands the monument of Columbus, the apostle of these parts and founder of the abbey, at present nothing but a ruinous heap of stones, and gives us no idea of what it was originally; but seems to have been plain, rude, and suited to the simplicity of those ages in which the Gospel was planted in these Northern parts of Scotland. At the end of the monument stands a little chapel, in which, it is possible, in these ignorant and devout ages, they offered their prayers to God for the blessings of the Gospel conveyed to them by this holy person. Near the chapel stand three large crosses of black marble, finely engraved, of which one that is high and proportionally big is yet entire, and more than half of the other two remaining. Sacheverell 1702, 101, our emphasis

As the Benedictine Abbey grew, the originally free-standing St Columba’s Shrine was ultimately attached, to the outer western wall of cloister in the early thirteenth century, and linked to the north-west corner of the church by a small tower in the fifteenth century (rcahms 1982, 52). That the ruined Shrine was still singled out for attention it clear by the way that at some point in its recent history it was enclosed within a low rectangular kerb of large boulders and this area was tidied up. In 1808 Walker described a ‘little stone inclosure with a monument sunk in the ruins, where, it is said, Columba was entombed’ (Walker 1808, 140). Architect Henry Dryden carefully recorded the rectangular enclosure and its contents in 1874 (Fig. 50). Any loose fragments of the St John’s Cross are nowhere to be seen (ditto fragment of St Matthew’s later recognised by the well head), and the boxed shaft is now an edge feature, its western half projecting from the enclosure. We are on more confident ground when we say that traditions of St Columba circulated in the Gaelic population and that islanders were using the Abbey ruins, Columba’s Shrine and other chapels for their devotions into the second half of the eighteenth century (Sharpe 2012, 249, 258; Sacheverell 1702, 102). How and if the shrine-chapel complex was actively managed after the Reformation is guesswork, but it was clearly not forgotten just because monks ceased to maintain and use the space. The nearby Abbey church was remodelled as the cathedral of the Diocese of the Isles between the 1630s and 1662, which would have redirected a focus back to the Abbey and its founder’s original burial place (rcahms 1982, 25, 150). Many islanders today still refer to the ‘Cathedral’ today rather than ‘Church’, although the bishopric status is open to question (Marshall 2014, 141, 76). But what of the eighth century to the Reformation? Contrary to popular wisdom, the monastery at Iona did not disappear with the devastating Viking raid of ad 806. In fact, Iona’s early medieval sculpture mostly dates from the ninth to eleventh centuries and shows how the Norse, some of whom settled on the island (Campbell et al. 2019, 330), adopted Christianity and supported the monastery. Thomas Clancy suggests Iona may even have retained the headship of the Columban Church until the early eleventh century, after the Christmas Eve

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Massacre of ad 986 in which a Dublin Norse party murdered the abbot and 15 churchmen during intra-Scandinavian warfare (Clancy 2013). The alternative view is that the headship transferred much earlier to Kells (Herbert 1988). Although Columba’s main relics were shared between Dunkeld in eastern Scotland and Kells in Ireland in 849, along with what we now know as the Book of Kells (Bannerman 1993; 1997), the Columban monastery continued through to the twelfth century. It was important enough for Queen Margaret to want to visit in 1072, although the state of the place led her to give money for its rebuilding (Macquarrie 1997, 215; Bradley 1999, 50, 55). Recently recognised ecclesiastical metalwork from Iona includes an ornate, likely twelfth-century, reliquary or crosier (Campbell et al. 2019, 319–24). When a local lord founded a Benedictine Abbey in 1203, this led to a continued investment in cult infrastructure. A new cult focus was created in the north transept of the Abbey, and there is archaeological evidence for laying of a paved area around the shrine-chapel, St John’s Cross and well-head (Yeoman 1999, 81–5). The landscape of crosses also continued to develop; a cross was erected on Tòrr an Aba, possibly replacing an earlier cross (rcahms 1982, 240) (Fig. 51). In the early fifteenth century, the Lord of the Isles gave the Abbey precious metals to re-enshrine the reliquary containing

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Figure 50 Plan of cleared shrine-chapel and area around St John’s Cross, drawn by Henry Dryden 1874–5 and 1877.

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Figure 51 Later medieval socket-stone for a cross on the top of Tòrr an Aba, immediately north of the site of the likely cell of St Columba .

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Columba’s hand (Bradley 1999, 83). Before and after the transfer of Columba’s main relics, the Shrine and St John’s Cross therefore continued to be a focus of pilgrimage, predominantly from Ireland and the West Highlands of Scotland, even though it was no longer the main centre of Columba’s cult, and the saint’s relics were housed in the main church. However and whenever the St John’s Cross fell into fragments, its base and in-situ shaft were not disturbed. Ultimately, only close examination of the fragments of the St John’s Cross can tell us what its break-up involved. Before its latest repair in 1990, the St John’s Cross was in 45 pieces, and a goodly number of these stemmed from the 1951 and 1957 falls. In its reassembled state, it is now impossible to examine or record many of the broken surfaces, and the 1990 reconstruction pre-dates what would now be routine 3d recording of each individual fragment. What is clear from nineteenth-century and later photographs, notably those taken during conservation and recording in the 1970s and 1980s, is that the main breaks to the head have an antiquity, for their surfaces are weathered. A couple of the cross-head fragments have clearly also had another life given later reworking. In one side of the top arm, Graham faithfully recorded in 1850 two aligned cavities, one cup-shaped, one more slit-like (see Fig. 53), and the

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rcahms recorded these in 1990 as part of an emergency recording of the head

of the St John’s Cross before it was reconstructed, but this is the first time they are recorded and discussed in print (see also Fig. 48). The two holes, one shallow and hemi-spherical, and one grooved, are vertically aligned but not necessarily contemporary; there is no surviving evidence for anything inserted into them. A further hemi-spherical feature on one internal side of the broken boss fragment recorded by the rcahms in 1990 (just visible in rcahms 1982, 200, E) looks like something pivoted in it, but the function of all these later features is unknown. The extended period of the fragmentation of the St John’s Cross therefore raises innumerable questions about the meanings and values attached to the remaining in-situ cross and the individual fragments into which it split and dispersed. The timeline is very poorly understood. When did a cross that was at the heart of one of Scotland’s most important cult sites finally break up ‘beyond repair’? If the St John’s Cross broke up while the site was still being used for pilgrimage, how did those worshipping at St Columba’s burial place then regard it and its fragments? Left where they fell, fragments would have taken up some space (see Figs 61–2 of the St John’s Cross when it fell in 1951 and 1957). If any effort was made to move or tidy-up fallen cross fragments in historic times, they would have been unlikely to travel too far from where they fell, as we know was the case for the loose fragment of the St Matthew’s Cross identified by I. G. Scott in the 1970s (Graham 1850, 22; cf. Hawkes 2017, 104–5). The capacity of the St John’s Cross fragments to document its biography beyond the eighth-century has previously been ignored (see also Chapter 6).

Antiquarian rebirth, earliest copies Approaching the west doorway of Iona Abbey in late September 1927 you would not have been able to miss the newly reconstructed St John’s Cross. The visual contrast between the worn historic stone and the Portland cement that filled the gaps was stark (Fig. 52). This was an intended design feature, to distinguish old and new, but subsequently toned down (Phillips 1958, 19). Recommended by fellow Glasgow School-of-Art graduate Alec Ritchie, the reputable Glasgow company of sculptors, modellers and plasterers, Holmes and Jackson Ltd (University of Glasgow History of Art and hatii 2011b), had secured the known fragments with 1-inch square copper dowels and the ring had been reconstructed in reinforced concrete. This project was initiated, organised and funded by Robert A. S. Macalister, after seeking permission from the Iona Cathedral Trust in 1922. An archaeologist with an interest in epigraphy, Macalister had become Professor of Celtic Archaeology at University College Dublin. As a Celtic scholar he was interested in Iona’s carved stones, particularly its inscriptions, attempting in July 1913 to compile the first full list of the stones (Macalister 1914). However, his connection to Iona was also personal. Half Scottish through his Perth mother, his brother-in-law Sir Donald Macalister, Principal of Glasgow University, was an Iona Cathedral Trustee for 22 years. Macalister seems to have had a particularly

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Figure 52 ‘No attempt

has been made to present a deceptive counterfeit of the old work’ (Macalister 1927). Alec Ritchie sent this postcard to W. G. Welch on 22 September 1927, proudly beginning his message, ‘Photograph of restored St John’s Cross’.

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close relationship with his sister Edith and Sir Donald: he retired to Cambridge and died at the same home address as Sir Donald (Crilly 2004; Fagan 2004). Macalister’s personal and professional investment in Iona was therefore considerable and of some duration. It can be argued that his efforts in reconstructing the St John’s Cross in some way contributed to his identity and special relationship with Iona, and reflected his mixed ethnicity: ‘my contribution to the restoration of the ancient sanctuary, in which Ireland and Scotland can claim an equal share’ (Macalister 1927). He cultivated the project and its outcomes in various media, including the newly created journal Antiquity, the editor of which, O. G. S. Crawford, also holidayed on Iona with his devout aunts. Macalister knew Alec Ritchie well, persuading him to remove the lichen from St Martin’s Cross by applying a peat poultice, not least because he wanted to examine a worn inscription at the bottom of the shaft. He also knew Peter MacGregor Chalmers (d. 1922), the architect involved in earlier works to the Abbey church, who said to him ‘that he wished the cross-head in question could be secured’ (Macalister 1927). Macalister was also in some measure fulfilling Romilly Allen’s wish, although surprisingly he does not cite Allen’s work: The fragments of the great cross of the Kildalton type lying within the railing outside St Oran’s Chapel should at once be rescued from their present position and placed under cover. It is possible that the remaining fragments may be recovered by careful search, so as to enable the whole to be restored. It would then be seen that this was by far the finest cross at Iona and (with the exception of the Kildalton, which it so nearly resembles) in the whole of Scotland. Allen 1901, 93

It was a real achievement to recognise that various dispersed fragments joined together to make a massive cross-head and its upper shaft, and that this belonged to the shaft in front of the shrine-chapel. In print, Allen and Macalister can get the credit. Allen first visited Iona in 1891. With help from local guide John Macdonald, he noted the ‘mutilated’ cross-shaft of St John’s Cross, pointing out the parallels with Irish altars and drawing a link to Pennant’s 1792 account of the clach-bràth (see above). He also ‘discovered’ the above cross-head, which he reconstructed ‘after a considerable amount of trouble’ (Allen 1892, 257; 1901, 89–90, Fig 12). From six pieces of cross-head, Allen observed the mortices for inserting the assumed ring and realised that something of finer material might be inserted into the central disc on one side of the cross-head. He also noted what he called the ‘apex-stone … at the top, with ‘a pair of beasts facing each other’. By 1903 he had linked the cross-head to its ex-situ upper shaft, but did not apparently relate the cross-head and upper shaft to the in-situ lower shaft of the St John’s Cross (Allen & Anderson 1903, 384–5, 387–8). Macalister gets the credit for acknowledging the latter in print (Macalister 1927). By April 1927, Macalister had also found a missing part in the Manse garden. Not apparently aware of Allen’s work, he gave himself the credit for realising that

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‘a peculiar bit of cresting’ with a tenon belonged on the top of the cross-head, despite being a different fabric. What neither Allen nor Macalister knew was that they were beaten to a reconstruction of the cross-head from its fragments, including that finial. A young gentleman adventurer and artist called Henry D. Graham was, as he described himself, ‘resident in the island’ from 1848 to 1854 (Christian & Stiller 2000, 21–6). Accurately and affectionately, he sketched the island’s antiquities, landscape, thatched houses, people and their dogs. Some of this Graham published in the earliest detailed publication of Iona’s antiquities (Graham 1850), but his unpublished sketches and notes from his time on Iona only came to light in the 1980s (nrhe Acc No 1988/16; 1988/24). As mentioned by Fisher (2001, 5), Graham’s achievement in terms of the St John’s Cross (and St Oran’s Cross) was to recognise and reconstruct the cross-head from its many fragments, by then gathered at Reilig Odhráin, noting how the mortices and tenons fitted together. His St John’s Cross reconstruction is not quite correct, but it does include the finial and he posits the missing ring quadrants (Figs 53–4). He also sketched several fragments of the ex-situ shaft of the St John’s Cross, but did not relate these to the cross-head or the in-situ shaft. He was clearly interested in the snake-bosses, to judge from another of his manuscripts. In this he sketched comparative details of what is the St John’s Cross, St Martin’s Cross, prehistoric rock art and other prehistoric objects (nrhe Acc no 2010/16). Alec Ritchie had plaster casts of the head fragments made for display in the Scottish History and Archaeology section of the International Exhibition Glasgow of 1901, described as ‘Fragments of an early cross at Iona’ (Anon 1901, 33). The impetus to include the un-named cross-head in Glasgow came from Ritchie and is surely a measure of the value he attached to the worth of Iona’s carved stones, this sculpture, and perhaps his role in its coming together. Ritchie significantly helped Macalister to compile his 1913 carved stone inventory and his cast influenced Macalister’s thinking about the St John’s Cross. The cast omitted Allen’s ‘apex-stone’, as indeed did Allen’s own illustration of how to reconstruct the head (Allen 1901, fig. 12), and this is perhaps the reason that Macalister thought he had discovered the finial and its significance. The original cross was therefore reborn in the ‘hands’ of Macalister, aided by Alec Ritchie, building in some ways on the research of Romilly Allen, neither of whom knew anything about Graham’s earlier work. Macalister also had plaster casts made of the cross-head, intended for display at St Ronan’s so that visitors could more readily see its detail. The St John’s Cross stepped up and out into the realm of national patrimony – international with its overt Irish connections. The art of the crosses, which Macalister dated to the eleventh or twelfth centuries, had supposedly come from Ireland through manuscript art (Macalister 1928). It was luck that the eighth-century box-base survived Macalister. His workers dismantled the composite box, discovering the two stones below, and a piece of slag under that. They reconstructed the box and filled it with concrete to support the cross.

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Figure 53 H. D. Graham’s ‘Fragments of Cross lying in Reileag Oran – Iona – 1850’. The lettering relates to his proposed reconstruction (Fig. 54).

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Figure 54 H. D. Graham’s 1850 ‘Restored Cross. Iona from fragments fitted together’. There are some misunderstandings, with ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘E’ depicting what we now know to be east faces of the cross, while the rest are from the west face. He correctly recognises ‘F’ as part of the cross, but it should have slotted into ‘D’. ‘C’ is the missing reverse of ‘D’. If we assume we are looking at the west face, then ‘A’ and ‘E’ need to be swapped, both turned through 180 degrees, with ‘B’ and ‘E’ also turned over.

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Unlike Ritchie, Macalister thought the St John’s Cross might as well still be standing on its original site; nothing would anyway be lost by covering up the undecorated panels within the box. Recognition of the full archaeological, art-historical and architectural significance of the St John’s Cross would wait a further half century. Meantime, now with a whole ‘new’ Iona monument to celebrate, Alec Ritchie created his first St John’s Cross based on Macalister’s reconstruction: ‘one can now see the cross as it was originally and marvel at its unique and superb form and the varied and minute patterns that cover the entire surface’, wrote the Ritchies in their 1928 Map of Iona guidebook (Ritchie & Ritchie 1928, 11). Like the 1970 replica, this assumed that both sides of the cross-head had plain, shallow discs for insets. His silver copies are suspended from the distinctive finial (see Fig. 7). As souvenirs and gifts, replicas of the St John’s Cross began to percolate around the world, a late-comer to the Celtic Revival, in which jewellery copies of Celtic crosses had emerged from about 1870 (Gere & Rudoe 2010, 452). Before moving on, we need to reflect more on how the St John’s Cross emerged as an entity in the hands of the early antiquarians, before Allen’s survey work had firmly situated it within the first inventory of the nation’s early Christian monuments. Chapter 3 provided a broader context with its overview of emerging interest in Iona’s carved stones in their entirety, and this gives us some sense of how the different parts of the St John’s Cross could have been curated. People who cared moved the fragments between the Reilig Odhráin, St Oran’s Chapel and a manse garden, and ultimately back to the cross itself. We saw how, as visitors came in greater and greater numbers, they needed to respond to their emotions on discovering what they encountered. As a Gaelic-speaker put it in 1771, ‘Those fairies who expect to see castles of gold suspended upon liquid water will find their curiosity much disappointed in this place … Nature has formed Icolumbkill for contemplation’ (Anon 1883, 31). For all their expectations, visitors could still be moved: The interest and expression of the island must depend entirely on the mind which surveys it … for it is impossible to contemplate [the ruins] their venerable fragments, and muse upon their history, without an emotion of melancholy and holiness which few other spots in the world can inspire! Botfield 1830, 288

We also saw how meanings became attached to places in the landscape, including carved stones, for the benefit of the visiting public. Traditions were recycled, not least through the agency of travellers’ published accounts of Scotland. These dated as far back as 1549 (Munro 1961). Until the mid-nineteenth century, most early traveller and antiquarian interest was in Iona’s later medieval sculptures rather than the high crosses. In its completeness, St Martin’s cross inevitably got most attention, in words, visual media and indeed performance. The famed diarist James Boswell knelt and prayed

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at it in 1773 (Pottle & Bennett 1963, 335), and it regularly captured the eye of fleeting visitors, such as Skinner in 1825 (e.g. Figs 29–30). Since early visitors often mixed the names of the crosses, it is not always possible to say which cross they mean when they refer to St John’s. A St John’s Cross was first mentioned in 1773, unambiguously associated with what we now know as St John’s Cross in 1875, but it is possible that Gaelic tradition preserved what could be an appropriate early medieval name – Cros Eoin – given the reverence attached to St John by the early medieval Irish and Northumbrian churches (rcahms 1982, 200). As attention started to focus on care for the Abbey ruins and its carved stones, so the in-situ crosses, including St John’s, gradually became the subject of striking photography. The skilled professional and amateur photographers were motivated by the desire to record and explain, but also to generate marketable images that met the visiting public’s interest in such historic landscapes and features (cf. Crawshaw & Urry 1997). George Washington Wilson’s bucolic, if staged, images are the earliest photography of the cross, vividly capturing the hoary lichen on all three high crosses (Fig. 55) (Wilson 1867, see wider collection of Iona images at the University of Aberdeen). Figure 55 also shows the west side of the rectangular enclosure that encompassed the footings of St Columba’s Shrine up to and including the foot of St John’s Cross. Framed by massive boulders, the interior is full of smaller stones. Graham’s 1850 illustration of the Abbey shows it stacked with a pile of bigger stones (Graham 1850, pl. 30). Clearance certainly allowed Sir Henry Dryden to plan the enclosure in 1874–5 and 1877 (see Fig. 50). Conceivably fragments of the St John’s Cross were recovered at this stage and

Figure 55 George Washington Wilson’s ‘Remains of Ancient Crosses’, thought to date to 1867 or 1868. Note the stony enclosure between the shrinechapel (not visible) and the shaft of St John’s Cross.

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removed to the Reilig Odhráin (rcahms 1982, 197), which is where George Washington Wilson photographed some in around 1877, and Ernest Beveridge photographed them in 1895 (Beveridge 1922, 55–6; Ferguson 2009, 85) (Fig. 56). As was his wont when recording monuments, Romilly Allen produced rubbings of many of the carved surfaces of the St John’s Cross in 1891. At the time of their creation, circulating antiquarian images of the crosses were valued for what they communicated about early Scottish art. Importantly, they were the inspiration for contemporary artists and craftsmen. Gravestone makers referred, for example, to Stuart’s Sculptured Stones of Scotland for their models. The second volume of this included Gibb’s careful record of the in-situ shaft, simply described as ‘fragments’ (Stuart 1856; 1867, pls xlv, xlvi) (Fig. 57). Complete, St Martin’s and the Kildalton Crosses were copied as memorials all over the world, while jewellery based on St Martin’s Cross also began to be manufactured from about 1870 (pers comm S. Laurenson, E. M. MacArthur). Fulfilling the desires of early antiquaries such as Logan, Iona and its Abbey were being recognised as a national asset, as ‘national property’ that needed guardians (Logan 1832). In that context the sheer beauty of one particularly needy monument was gradually recognised. As Joseph Anderson, Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities, noted in a Rhind lecture series that was one of the milestones in bringing Scotland’s early medieval monuments and artefacts to serious recognition, ‘I am safe in saying of it that no finer specimen of art workmanship in stone exists in Scotland’ (Anderson 1881, 79). The way in which the jig-saw puzzle that was St John’s Cross came together at this time is therefore symbolic of the renaissance of interest in what a wider world felt should be done with the Abbey and for its visitors. The replica jewellery that it spawned is a measure of the value that now attached to this reborn monument.

Figure 56 One of Ernest Beveridge’s photographs of carved stones stored in an enclosure within the Reilig Odhráin in 1895 with, to the rear, fragments of the St John’s Cross. The nowdestroyed tenon is visible on what is the top of the cross shaft top left.

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Figure 57 Aberdeenbased artist A. Gibb’s record of the shaft of the St John’s Cross (Stuart 1867, pl. xlv).

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Silent witness Macalister’s reconstruction of the St John’s Cross, his ‘finest cross in Scotland’, stood only for 24 years before it partly collapsed. The period up to 1951 is a ‘moment’ in its life when those closest to it apparently largely ignored it – it stood, it observed, and it apparently ‘said’ little to the people who busied themselves with the mission of the Iona Community. Around it, and later iterations, the Iona Community established itself on Iona and, controversially, rebuilt the Abbey’s monastic buildings (pp. 39–40, 59) (Fig. 58). Meantime, Iona’s ever-burgeoning population of visitors continued to come, see, pray, and take away postcards and copies, whether pendants or crosses mounted on blocks of Iona marble. This is not the place to recount the history of MacLeod’s enterprise during this period, but we must briefly reflect on the role of the crosses, particularly the reconstructed St John’s Cross. The backdrop, as we have seen in Chapter 3, was the Ministry of Works and other heritage bodies’ concern about how the archaeological, historical and art-historical significance of the Abbey and related places might be preserved; and they had a real concern for the island’s ‘priceless’ carved stones. As we also saw in Chapter 3, the Iona Community’s focus promoted a living and socially relevant church. MacLeod’s views were starkly expressed – the Ministry was interested in dead things, he was only interested in a live church, and such things only came to life if in use in some way. His interest in Eastern Orthodox ritual did not preclude the use of ecclesiastical fittings, but the stone crosses were seemingly not useful to him. Figure 58 Volunteers from the Iona Community carry building timbers from the jetty to the Abbey in 1950, past the reconstructed St John’s Cross.

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While the space around the crosses was an invaluable gathering place for groups of people, as at the open-air service to celebrate the completion of the rebuilding works in 1965, the crosses did not play an important role in the religious practices of the Iona Community. MacLeod might passionately proclaim the relevance of St Martin of Tour’s life, his values and legacy to contemporary Iona Community ways of thinking and acting (MacLeod 1940, 17), but it was little more than a nice coincidence to have a historic cross named after him at the door of the Abbey. They were, however, mentioned when there was a value in asserting the religious pedigree of the place, such as in fund-raising. There could well be hidden and complex depths to MacLeod and his followers’ views on the crosses (see Chapter 7 on contemporary ‘silent witness’), but the evidence is not available to critically examine this in any depth. We have not established when St Martin’s became the starting point for the Iona Community pilgrimages that MacLeod introduced, or indeed became the fire evacuation point. Still, the significance of that cross’ association with St Martin has certainly become part of contemporary Iona Community reflective practice, as we discovered during our ethnographic work, presumably influenced by MacLeod’s thinking (Bentley & Paynter 2011, 16–25, 182). The reconstructed St John’s Cross was essentially ignored. Except that there was archaeological interest in the shrine-chapel area. Between 1870 and 1996, Iona Abbey saw much piecemeal excavation by many different archaeologists, what Jerry O’Sullivan has characterised as ‘death by many cuts’ (O’Sullivan 1998; 1999). In 1949, the Ministry’s Stewart Cruden explored the interior of St Columba’s Shrine, the area between it and St John’s Cross, and an irregular area further to the west. He did not write his excavations up. We must assume they were in some way ‘rescue’ excavations in advance of Iona Community disturbance, as the Ministry struggled for this to be preceded by good-quality archaeological recording and analysis. The only record, and just for a part of Cruden’s work, is sketches and notes torn from his field notebook, encountered loose in the back of a government file (dd27/1120, nrs; O’Sullivan 1998, 8–9, fig. 3). Cruden found what he described as a ‘paved path & rubble-faced walling’ running into the ‘box’ of the St John’s Cross on its north side. The poor history of excavation at the heart of the cult-site of St Columba is embarrassing for such a significant site as important scientific evidence was certainly lost. If the St John’s Cross had become a silent witness to the renaissance of the Abbey by the Iona Community, it was shortly to start to generate its own waves among the community of international scholars interested in the early medieval art, archaeology and history of Britain and Ireland. Arguably, the main spur for this interest was that it fell in 1951, was repaired and fell again in 1957. These dramatic events and the subsequent creation of the replica stimulated new thinking about the original (Chapter 6). The remainder of this chapter looks at the history of these falls and how the fallen cross was perceived by what are now the familiar communities of different interests. This sets the background for the concrete replica story (Chapter 5), and further illustrates the ways in which people found Iona special and developed a relationship with it.

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The Fallen Cross St John’s Cross has fallen twice during the present decade and as these happenings have directed public attention to it, I believe this monograph containing photographs and information collected from various sources, will interest all those who love Iona (Phillips 1958, viii)

Figure 59 Cover of A. C. Phillip’s 1958 The Fallen Cross booklet.

So Alfred Charles Phillips began his booklet The Fallen Cross (Fig. 59). Selfpublished in 1958 in a limited print-run of 250, he gave individually numbered copies to Scottish libraries, friends and those he sought to persuade to protect the St John’s Cross (we are proud to own numbers 79 and 231!). Dedicating the book ‘To my wife and our island friends’, poet asserted how he and his wife already ‘belonged’ to Iona in some way, showed he was part of a wider community who loved Iona, and in researching, writing and promoting his book, extended his network with the place. Phillips was in fact A. C. Vowles, a successful and well-known West Country photographer and journalist. On becoming the third husband of the wealthy poet, novelist and playwright Dorothy Una Ratcliffe in 1947, he changed his name to that of her second husband (Fig. 60). The couple lived in 42 Ann Street in Edinburgh and were regular visitors to Iona, somewhere she had come for holidays as a child. As her sister Mrs P. I. Young put it in 1968, ‘Iona was such a happy playground for us children in the early years of the century that we warm to all them who find it as interesting and loveable as we did’ (ms 38516/3/7, st asc). Ratcliffe, known as D. U. R., is best known for her poetry in the Yorkshire dialect. According to the author of a memoir, ‘The island of Iona was a favourite place … It was fascinating to see with what

Figure 60 Dorothy Una Ratcliffe left and two friends on a beach in about 1955.

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Figure 61. The St John’s Cross after its first fall in 1951, photographed in 1953 (Phillips 1958, pl. viii).

devotion and spontaneous pleasure many of the islanders greeted her wherever she went’ (Halliday 1969, 16). Her 1958 The Lady of a Million Daffodils includes some of her encounters with people on Iona, and Iona had woven its way into a significant point in her last (unfinished) novel (Halliday 1969, 28). D. U. R. and Phillips had first seen the broken cross on a visit in 1953 when they were ‘shocked to find it lying on the ground grievously smashed’ and incredulous that it was left lying there (Fig. 61). Visiting Iona again in 1957 they saw that the repaired St John’s Cross had fallen for a second time. They thought that it should have been brought inside and felt that it should have been spared the most recent physical interventions to fix it. They wanted a more dignified base, referring to the ‘random rubble masonry and the crazy paving’ of the 1954 repairs to the composite box structure, and disliked the indentations made in the wet cement to imitate bosses (Phillips 1958, 26, 27). D. U. R. was moved to write a poem called ‘The Fallen Cross’ (2). Her 1957 poem is little known because she self-published it as a Supplement to her limitedcirculation The Northern Broadsheet, of which very few copies apparently survive (Foster came across it in the closed D. F. O. Russell archive at St Andrews University Special Collections). This publication, sold for charity, only ever extended to six issues. Despite the shared title, her husband’s 1958 publication is better known, but does not mention her poem. His is also the first and only other book dedicated to the St John’s Cross. According to Halliday, Phillips ‘had a strong vein of indignation in his make-up’ and was prone to writing letters of complaint (Halliday 1969, 25). He was certainly terrier-like in his use of the media to seek action to preserve the St John’s Cross, and his book proved a very useful tool once in the hands of the right people (Chapter 5). His pithy but wellresearched history of the St John’s Cross, and his own high-quality photography of the fallen cross, coupled with historic images, eloquently conveyed his subject and its cause, which was to save an artistic masterpiece from more unavoidable damage: ‘St John’s Cross is a national heritage, but during these last years much of its glory has been lost forever’ (Phillips 1958, 31).

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Figure 62 The recently fallen St John’s Cross as it lay in May 1957. (Phillips 1958, pl. ix)

Whatever you think of the literary qualities of D. U. R.’s sentimental poem, it was well-intentioned and offers insights into the way regular visitors might authenticate their special relationship with Iona, not least through their own lived experience of the place. However, it is patently the voice of an outsider, a wealthy one who arrived in her own yacht. It puts words into the mouth of islanders that we cannot vouch for. It also very gently twice scolds the Iona Community whose masons busily worked on the Abbey’s recreation but ignored the St John’s Cross. Macalister’s reconstructed cross had first fallen in a massive gale in December 1951. The Iona Cathedral Trust who owned the Abbey sought advice on what to do, but things took time. A second phase of reconstruction works led by the Trustees was approved in 1954, and reported complete by October 1955. Likely not co-incidentally, this is around the same time that the Iona Community rebuilt St Columba’s Shrine. The Ministry undertook these repairs of the St John’s Cross for the Trustees: J. Ahara, Superintendent of Works at Stirling Castle supervised the work, which was undertaken by Hugh Macdonald and D. MacLauchlan. Unfortunately, this scheme involved no consultation with the Ancient Monuments Inspectorate. Cruden was unhappy with the result, which involved the significant use of delta metal dowels fixed with cement to connect and strengthen the fragments, filling the gaps and reconstructing missing designs with a synthetic material that could be treated to match the colour and texture of stone, as well as treating all the surfaces of the stone with tinted shellac. The eighth-century tenon at the junction of the shaft and lower arm, and the tenon of the crested finial were very unfortunately tooled away. Highly visible, long delta metal bars were added to the sides to offer further support (see Fig. 62).

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2 ‘The Fallen Cross’ The masons work, yet prone on the grass Lies a cross to be seen by all who pass. It fell to earth in a winter-storm, Which the crofters said did grievous harm, And now they ask, “will nothing be done To lift the fallen Cross of St. John, And put it in some more sheltered place, Where all can admire its Celtic grace?” When a child, I heard on the Sithean Mor Skylarks singing from shore to shore, Linnets, the loved little birds of Bride, As they twittered at dawn and eventide; The far-away elfin cuckoo-call From granite rocks on the Ross of Mull; The persistent cry of the shy corncrake Bidding the shyer summer awake; And once I saw seven wild swans flying Moonward, while the seal-pups were crying. Many a summer my yawl was bound For an anchorage in Iona Sound And always, in sun or mist or shower, A guiding mark was the Abbey tower. If the Lord of the Isles who gave the fane Could return and see Iona again, Or the Benedictines, their grief would be As deep as that of the crofters and me. The masons erect new walls while prone Lies the lovely nimbused Cross of St. John.

Gone are the speedwell and grey-blue squill From many a lamb-frequented hill. Gone is the Orchis, the Burnet rose, St. John’s Wort – Columba’s flower – that grows Near Juniper where the Rock-doves croon Through the long sun-bright hours of June. The hard-won quoils are exposed and weathered, The oats are sheafed and the rye is gathered; And you may hear at the end of dark The lowing of cows and a sheep-dog’s bark, So the seasons come and the seasons go, But the Cross of St. John, it still lies low. The crofters see, with quiet dismay The Cross on the ground, day after day: Before it crumbles beneath the rain Can nothing be done to raise it again? ... So many centuries since Christ died, Yet Loveliness still is crucified! Dorothy Una Ratcliffe Autumn 1957

This second repair fell in another gale, on 4 February 1957, the St John’s Cross breaking off just below where the external metal supports stopped (Fig. 63). If the first repair to Macalister’s reconstruction had taken a long time to organise, finding a solution to the needs of the St John’s Cross after the second fall was destined to be a long haul. The fragments were simply left where they fell and not even moved under temporary boxed cover until 1960, which further irritated Phillips. Even though it was generally recognised that it was neither possible nor desirable to reconstruct the St John’s Cross outside once more, MacLeod preferred that it ‘might well we allowed to decay in the open in God’s own time’, as we

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Figure 63 The broken shaft of St John’s Cross in 1965, with its 1954 reconstructed base.

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saw in Chapter 3. According to a letter in The Scotsman (6 October 1959) from J. Young who worked at the Abbey between early 1957 and 1959, MacLeod spoke of the St John’s Cross ‘often enough, and in terms of its restoration’ (indeed see MacLeod’s letter to The Scotsman of 28 September 1959), but we know he was strongly opposed to ‘museumisation’, even of something important and ‘brittle’. The real and practical problem was who would take responsibility, who would show leadership, and who would pay: priorities, ownership, skills and resources were not aligned. For the first repairs, MacLeod expected the Ministry to take the action, but Young admonished MacLeod for not exerting his influence during the year that he was Moderator of the Church of Scotland, and hence a Trustee of the Iona Cathedral Trust. Commenting on the cost of the controversial Lipschitz sculpture erected in the centre of the Abbey’s cloisters, the retired J. S. Richardson wrote to The Scotsman on 9 February 1959, asking ‘What £7000 could have done in Iona [to] create an established sanctuary of Celtic art’. With the full recreation of the Abbey in their sights, scholars and heritage bodies were renewing their efforts to work with the Iona Cathedral Trust and Iona Community to secure a better future for Iona’s carved stones. The broken state of St John’s Cross and the apparently intractable problem of finding a solution for this, provided the necessary kindling. The Ancient Monuments Board travelled to Iona in 1959, and a ‘conference’ took place in Edinburgh at the end of the year. A handwritten note about the latter suggests that by this point even MacLeod recognised that the importance of the St John’s Cross probably justified its removal (dd27/1122, nrs). It was 1990 before a solution for the St John’s Cross would materialise, and into that void meantime was to step the concrete replica.

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Figure 64 David Francis Oliphant Russell, probably in the early 1960s.

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5 Birth of the concrete replica ‘I can’t think of anything more worthwhile doing’ I was born out of a love for Iona. From my very guts, I know it to be is so St John’s Cross

But for the love of Iona and sustained efforts of a few determined individuals, none of us could now experience the St John’s Cross in situ, in its open-air landscape setting. We would not know what we were missing (Chapter 7). But linked to Iona were people who felt the immediate loss of the St John’s Cross from the place, and they cared deeply enough to put their passion, time and skills into enabling a replica to replace it. They also extended that care to every element of the replica’s technical and artistic design, fabric and location. What matters is not just what they created and how, but why. The human story, the characters involved, emerge from the historic multiple communities described in Chapter 3. Their values, and attitudes to authenticity, are firmly embodied in the plot and its product – the concrete replica of the St John’s Cross. What pours forth is traditional materialist attitudes to authenticity, while at the same time illustrating the construction and negotiation of then contemporary, now historic, social values, as well as traditional more scholarly ones.

A slow conception The replica project took over ten years from conception of the idea in 1959 to dedication of the replica on 14 June 1970. That the replica came to be is, in the first place, largely down to three men and their cultural and/or material capital: Major D. F. O. Russell, Gilbert Innes and Harry Cant. Russell’s father, Sir David Russell, is to be credited with the Iona Community establishing itself on Iona, and the family wealth and networks facilitated the Abbey’s rebuild, the establishment of the Russell Trust, and many other important activities (MacIntyre 1994). Arguably the main responsibility for the replica lies with Major Russell (henceforth just Russell), who had inherited the Fife-based Tullis Russell and Co. Ltd papermill business on his father’s death in 1956 (Fig. 64). Russell’s dogged determination, networks and skills in diplomacy over many years made the project happen, but as the following quotes hint, the project also required the collaboration of Innes and Cant. It was really your enthusiasm and support that has made the whole of this possible. I can’t think of anything more worthwhile doing. Russell to Innes, 21 July 1969

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I feel certain, that but for your drive the project will have never got off the ground though in his own sphere I have a feeling that Mr. Cant was decidedly helpful. Innes to Russell, 27 June 1970 Cant really has been extremely helpful over the whole thing and has pursued this goal in spite of antipathy in many quarters. Russell to Innes, 29 June 1970

Innes was a wealthy shipping owner and philanthropist who, like Russell, holidayed on Iona (Glass 2009, 150–1). We have not been able to trace the nature of their relationship beyond involvement with the replica. Cant was a lawyer, a partner at J. and F. Anderson, WS Solicitors, of 48 Castle Street, Edinburgh. He acted as Secretary for the Iona Cathedral Trust (‘the Trustees’) from 1964/65 to the 1980s. Russell knew Cant because of his Iona connections. As an Independent Trustee of the Iona Appeal Trust, he sought sponsorship for the ongoing recreation of the Abbey by the Iona Community, to which the Russell family personally contributed. Creating a replica of the St John’s Cross was not an objective for the Iona Community (see below) but in his capacity as an interested and influential individual, Russell corresponded assiduously with Cant to try to persuade the Trustees to take action, and did much of the behind-the-scenes legwork. Cant later stepped up his direct involvement, as the project became a reality. But it was Innes’ first donation to an ‘accumulator fund’ for the St John’s Cross in 1959, and sustained financial support thereafter, which made the project conceivable. He was amenable right from the start for his funds being used for a replica instead of re-erecting the original, if that solution made best sense. Quite whose idea it first was to create a replica is another matter, although Ralegh Radford apparently suggested this in a review of Phillips’ 1958 The Fallen Cross. The Ancient Monument Board for Scotland took the unusual step of convening on Iona on 2–3 June 1959 to ‘examine the problem of the preservation of the collection of ancient carved stones’. This was against the background of the final stages of the Iona Community’s recreation of the Abbey, long-running concerns about the island’s carved stones (Chapter 3), and the recent St John’s Cross fall. In his recommendations to the Minister of Works on 2 July 1959, the Chair Professor W. Douglas Simpson stated that ‘it might be prudent to erect a replica of the St John’s Cross on its present site’, although this never translated to the Board’s published report (amb for Scotland 1959; 1960, 12–13; dd27/1122, nrs). Perhaps it was this recommendation, though, that led to someone, most likely George MacLeod or Ian Lindsay, presenting photographs of the concrete replica cross at Govan Old Parish Church to the 6 October 1959 meeting of the Trustees. The Trustees agreed to the principle of obtaining a replica. Just days after this, Innes put in writing that he was happy for his funds to be used for a replica. This was estimated to cost about £50. MacLeod’s view was that such a replica could be created by ‘blowing up’ one of Ritchie’s silver crosses, an idea he persisted with for many years, largely it seems on grounds of cost and with little

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regard for how this would relate to the original. But he also knew of Russell’s interest in getting a replica made and in 1961 offered to liaise with him. It took Russell to keep the replica idea alive, recognising that finding a solution for the St John’s Cross could proceed ‘on a faster track’ than creating a carved stone museum. The desire of the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland, particularly R. B. K. Stevenson, for a lapidarium to be established first was an obstacle to early progress with the replica project. A copy of Phillips’ privately published The Fallen Cross had landed on Russell’s desk in Fife in September 1958. Phillips had sent it at the instigation of Stevenson, prompting a correspondence between Russell and Phillips until the latter’s death in 1961. ‘My dear Bob’ was Keeper of Archaeology at the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, in Edinburgh. A leading scholar of Scotland’s early medieval art, the Trustees had asked Stevenson to advise them what to do with their sculptured stones collection. Attending a Trustees meeting just after the Board’s visit to Iona (Stevenson joined the Board 1961–78), he pronounced it ‘amongst the finest of its kind in Britain and perhaps in Europe’ and deserving of a building to house all Iona’s medieval carved stone fragments. But the Trustees considered a lapidarium on this scale too ambitious for them and reverted to plans to reconstruct the ruins of the Infirmary for this purpose. This annoyed Stevenson, who also did not warm to the early ideas for a replica. As Stevenson put it to Russell in September 1958, ‘The trouble with the St John’s cross, and indeed with all the monuments at Iona, is precisely that nobody feels responsible for them’. Russell researched options for creating a replica. At the suggestion of retired Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Scotland, J. S. Richardson, he wrote in 1961 to George Mancini, the obvious choice for such a job. Richardson and Russell’s father had been correspondents about how to secure Iona’s carved stones between the late 1920s and early 1940s. Mancini was a well-established Edinburgh-based artistic bronze founder, best known for his repair work on Eros in Picadilly Circus, London, while in Scotland he cast the iconic Robert the Bruce equestrian figure at Bannockburn (Pearson 1989; University of Glasgow History of Art and hatii 2011a; National Portrait Gallery 2018). Mancini already had a history of working with the Ministry of Buildings and Public Works, and the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. In 1938 he had made a concrete copy of a stone from Eilean Mor, Argyll for the Museum, and in 1964, a copy of the Pictish warrior slab from the Brough of Birsay for the Ministry. Both these projects involved Richardson, who in 1935 had been persuading his Chief Inspector that, if it was not possible to protect carved stones from weathering, then it was a good idea to replace them with a concrete replica and move the original to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. The Birsay project also involved Norman Robertson (see below). Russell had in mind creating something along the lines of the plaster casts of Irish high crosses that the National Museum of Ireland had commissioned for itself between 1898 and 1910, objects that today are still, frankly, awe-inspiring (nmi 2005; 2010; Foster & Curtis 2016, 140) (Fig. 65). One of his motivations in approaching Mancini was to help to reconcile the

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MacLeod and Ministry camps, so that there might be a cross on the site and a cross in the museum. At first Mancini had not seen the remains of what he described as the ‘tragic cross’, but he consulted Stevenson, Stewart Cruden, Richardson’s successor, and Cruden’s colleague Norman Robertson. Mancini’s verdict was that with the loss of surface details from falls, weathering and so much being missing, a full-size replica of the St John’s Cross could not be created satisfactorily. The view was that any replica of the cross ‘should be as accurate and complete as possible’, and since the restoration works in 1954 were not deemed successful, they did not provide the basis for copying. The Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland was also keen to postpone the idea because it did not want to remove the stump of the St John’s Cross shaft until there was a lapidarium to put it in. ‘It seems that St. John’s Cross is already “lost”’, observed Russell to Innes in October 1962, ‘in which case it does seem to be that any copy, at this stage, however satisfactory, is better than none’. Russell was continuing to keep Innes on board, anxiously requesting more copies of Phillips’ book from the author.

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Figure 65 The central court of the National Museum of Ireland, as we now know it, in the 1890s, with replicas of Irish high crosses in the centre.

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Indeed, Russell and Innes corresponded assiduously about how they might persuade the ‘Rustees’ [sic] to act. No support was expected from Stevenson who as a museum curator was ‘entirely bound up with his thinking with the Lapidarium’, noted Innes to Russell. In 1962, Innes tried to gather support from Professor William J. Smith, architect and member of the Ancient Monuments Board, and Macrae, the architect member of the Church of Scotland Art Committee. Smith was ‘chary’ about the feasibility of creating a replica, particularly with the site being so exposed. Meantime, Russell gently sought to coax Mancini with the suggestion of removing the original pieces from Iona, making a replica of these, returning the original fragments and then trying to build up a complete cross. Mancini only replied that this is what he had intended and in his view it was not possible; he ignored a plea to reconsider the options. It may be no coincidence that one of our interviewees described him as ‘a crabbit old thing’. Russell would not give up: ‘I simply refuse to accept the apparent conclusions that St. John’s Cross is lost forever. I cannot help feeling that someone with a little inspiration and enthusiasm could do something about it’, he told Innes. Through Smith, Innes and Russell heard of a Messrs J. Giusti and Co. of 405 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, established in 1867 as ‘Moulders and Figure Makers in Marble, Plaster and Cement’. In 1963, these formatori (skilled plaster workers) had only recently destroyed a 5-feet-high plaster cast of the cross. This probably relates to a cast made for the Glasgow 1901 Exhibition and/or 1905 Aberdeen Celtic Court (Appendix 1). Smith and others still thought it better to get the lapidarium in place before making a replica: ‘This might mean delaying forever!’, lamented Russell to MacLeod, and he wrote to Douglas Gaggini of Giusti and Co. about the possibility of creating a replica from a scaled-up Ritchie silver cross (MacLeod’s idea), with concrete an option for the final product. ‘I am beginning to feel that, in the long run, the only possible step will be to have a new full-scale cross carved by a suitable expert … and, if there were any need for it, presumably a cast could be made from the newly carved cross’, Russell confided to Innes in October 1963. Russell’s reach did extend to a sculptor, the famous Fife-based Hew Lorimer, who he approached in 1965. Russell just wanted someone to say that making a reconstruction or remodelling was in some way possible. Lorimer developed an interest, but the sources evaporate, and in 1968 Russell chased Lorimer to get his copy of The Fallen Cross back, such was the value of copies of this booklet. Russell was also trying to win around Cruden, offering in 1965 to help financially and, with reference to the Dublin plaster casts of Irish high crosses, pointing out the advantage of creating collections of copies that can be viewed ‘in some central place on the mainland’. As Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Cruden’s role was to regulate what happened at the scheduled Abbey of Iona. Through Cruden the Ministry did become an active player, initially establishing that casts survived in the Kelvingrove in Glasgow from the 1901 exhibition. These were ‘important’, as Cruden remarked to Russell, ‘because they represent parts of the Cross as they were before any attempt at restoration was made’ and

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therefore could help to ensure academic rigour. The Trustees supported this initiative but by March 1966 G. D. Crane, a civil servant whose duties included being Secretary to the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland, reported to the Trustees that the 1901 casts were partial and one-sided. However, the Ministry now had another idea, rebooting the project; Russell’s labours, what he himself described as his ‘desultory efforts’, were not wasted after all.

Fertile possibilities The Ministry changed the game when they realised that creating a reconstruction of the cross, and making a replica from it, were feasible: ‘What we have done is to collect together photographs of the casts and other parts, enlarge them and then mount them on a wall board’, Crane told Cant (Robertson was responsible for this photo montage). They recommended employing Mancini because of the similar work he had done for them, but he would need archaeological and art-historical advice. Although interested, they did not have an available staff resource. Yet Russell knew the man to advise Mancini was Norman Robertson. Trained as an artist and a wood carver, he worked for the Ministry and had made miniature copies of Iona’s carved stones for Russell’s father in 1948, when he was thinking about redisplay options. By September 1966, the Trust had got a statement from Mancini about how he could create the replica, at an estimated cost of £1680, and Cant, who then visited Mancini and Robertson, became an advocate for the project too: ‘I am strongly persuaded that this is a challenge which we must try to meet, otherwise with the stone deteriorating the Trustees might be failing in their duty to try and restore a replica if only inside a museum’, he told Russell. Cant was also heartened by Stevenson’s interest and view that there could be an American market for the ‘replicas, or miniatures’, for the Trust needed to find funds for the project. When the Trustees met in October 1966, they had a costed proposal before them, Innes had already donated £800 and was offering a further £400. Russell also offered a loan to cover any extra costs, with the expectation that costs would be offset by selling two or three copies. Nervous about the expense, the Trustees wanted to know how much it would cost to make a ‘waterproof replica’, hoping that a fibreglass version, light to transport, would work. By the end of April 1967, the Trustees had authorised Mancini and Robertson to proceed with creating the model. Ultimately, the creation of the replica was to involve three main stages of manufacture, which are summarised below: creating a full-scale plaster model of the cross, based on Robertson’s photo montage, from which a replica could be cast (Mancini’s task); creating jelly moulds from the model and casting the replica in concrete, along with a second back-up copy; and, having transported the concrete pieces to Iona, erecting the replica on Iona. This process sounds simple but belies the considerable scholarly, artistic, craft and engineering skills involved, let alone the debates about how an ‘authentic replica’ could best be created.

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‘Miraculous success’: an ‘authentic prototype’ for an ‘authentic replica’ It was April 1969 before Mancini painstakingly completed the three-dimensional model, the final positive cast from which it was possible to create a mould for the replica (3). Russell had been persuaded by Robertson and Mancini in 1966 that, unless cast from the original pieces, the replica would not be a copy, and ‘therefore be of little interest or no interest to the antiquarians, historians, artists, etc.’. The wording (our emphases) is telling. Mancini’s model would be ‘an authentic prototype for any replica’; ‘the proposed replica would be more authentic and complete in effect that the original, which if put up only in its authentic parts inside would perhaps suffer in comparison’ (November 1966 Trust Minutes). The goal was therefore to enable an ‘authentic replica’, which meant something that was as truthful as possible to the form of the original, in its ringed state, ‘as the hands of the old island artists had finished it’ (Anon 1970, 385). When they became more actively involved, the Ministry ‘made clear to [the] Trustees that only an “academically designed restoration” would be acceptable’. The pedigree of copies and its implications for the relationship between the fabric of the original and of the replica was what mattered, and there was a slippery but short slope beyond which replicas were dismissed as of no worth. The Trustees were happy that a small number of fibreglass copies might be made from Mancini’s model (something that they held control of the copyright over), but not ‘plastic souvenir miniatures’, the marketing of which was not deemed ‘suitable’. Cruden rather captured this sentiment when he wrote about Scotland’s high crosses in the Ministry’s illustrated guidebook on The Early Christian & Pictish Monuments of Scotland: The modern artist does not disdain to turn to them for inspiration: they are the originals of the innumerable Celtic crosses, which, as gravestones and war memorials are still erected in our churchyards and roadways throughout Scotland. Debased and commercialised they are turned out by the thousand every year as best-selling souvenirs. Cruden 1957, 15

The choice of the word ‘replica’ for the new St John’s Cross is therefore interesting in this context given its pejorative overtones (Chapter 1). The instigators and creators of the replica were very sensitive to the ways in which their carefully designed cross might be copied in the future, and they worked exceedingly hard to ensure that it had a material authenticity (truth to the original, accuracy, honesty), but they employed a descriptor (replica) that, arguably, immediately devalued the thing in question. The people who created the twentieth-century St John’s Cross and called it a replica still saw positive values in what that term stood for, in that there was a rigorous attention to the detail, fabric, colour and

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3 Stage one: George Mancini creates the master model,

working with Norman Robertson (Fig. 66)

With the original fallen cross surviving only in what was described as ‘seven large unconnected fragments’ (Robertson 1975, 112), a reconstructed full-scale model was needed. Mancini, who had first inspected the cross fragments in 1966, travelled to Iona in 1968. Here, under the supervision of Norman Robertson, he made 16 plaster casts from the original St John’s Cross fragments, which were boxed up at the time, including the lower portion of the shaft which the Ministry especially ‘uprooted’ for him (and then, it seems, replaced). Mancini and Robertson had to establish what needed to be restored. They produced a ‘mock-up replica photograph’. This involved mounting photographs of the carved sides of the surviving cross on a scaled drawing of the full cross (Robertson 1975, pl. 5). The exercise also reinforced the poor nature of the 1954 restoration. They needed to create a full relief model of the cross. In Mancini’s Edinburgh workshop at 125 Fountainbridge (behind the then Palais de Dance), Mancini’s casts were laid out to establish the full size and outline. Outlines were created in hardboard and attached to separate modelling boards, to which the respective casts were then affixed. With the designs on the cross’ panels of ornament being largely symmetrical, it was possible to ‘implant’ casts of similar patterns into the gaps, designs transposed where necessary by turning or inverting them. The central roundel on the east face of the cross-head was incorrectly assumed to be the same as the other side (but see Fig. 19 and pp. 79, 140–1). The decoration bordering the roundels is different on each side but could be reconstructed by repeating an arc of the surviving pattern. The casts used to reconstruct missing designs were all ‘taken from original workmanship’ (Robertson 1975, 113). The infilling of the upper arm and part of the uppermost panel on the west face, however, needed to be conjectural. The next phase was to create a plaster cast of each side of the shaft and cross-head by moulding the (composite) relief models, creating what Mancini called the ‘plaster pattern’. Segments of the ring, assumed by Mancini and Robertson to be plain, were conjectured and fitted into the arms of the cross (Robertson 1975, pls 7 and 8).

(see below) indeed location of the original. The aim was to understand the surviving, mostly symmetrical, design of the St John’s Cross, and to repeat this, where necessary, to fill the gaps. Any conjectural reconstruction was to be informed by the best available art-historical parallels. Such a focus on the honesty of detail in relation to the material qualities of the original is typically where value is placed in reconstruction projects.

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Mancini then produced the final positive plaster cast, which is a full three-dimensional model of the cross from the top of its basal structure upwards. This master model was produced in three pieces – the shaft, head and finial – the thickness of which mirrors the depth of the original (Robertson 1975, pl. 9). The joint between each of these was in the same location as on the original, but the original had more parts/ joints in its cross-head. There was a double roman joint between the replica head and shaft to allow quick reassembly. The finial stone was reconstructed rather than cast in its highly weathered form, ‘but extra care was taken to avoid obscuring any of the original surface. This rule was strictly observed wherever modelling was required’ (Robertson 1975, 113–14).

Figure 66 George Mancini stands in his Edinburgh workshop in front of his completed master model for the replica of the St John’s Cross.

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The desire for honesty often prompts new research to understand the thing that is to be copied or reconstructed, leading to important new knowledge and understanding. Good examples of this include Historic Scotland’s reconstruction of the Great Hall and Royal Palace at Stirling Castle (Fawcett 2001; Harrison 2011), or the multiple projects that have led to the copying and reconstruction of buildings, spaces and furnishings designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, of which the Willow Tea Rooms is a good example. The St John’s Cross replica project was no exception: Robertson, described by Richardson to Russell as ‘very intelligent and appreciative of medieval carving and pottery’, applied his practical and academic expertise to establish the design, and this generated new knowledge. His professional role and personal pride were shaped by his travails on this project, a journey that took him to new intellectual places, discovered through his repeated and intimate examination of Mancini’s casts and the original monument. The sort of value he attached to this project, and how this is embodied in Mancini’s master model, is reflected in Robertson writing an academic paper shortly before or after his retirement (Robertson 1975). Russell had encouraged him to do so from 1969, and Robertson saw the value in helping complete the story of the cross, with his new understandings about its structure and stability, the importance of recording the phases of damage, and recording how the new form was created. Beyond Robertson, other connoisseurs were needed to check that Mancini’s work acquired the necessary accuracy and integrity, to give the enterprise credence. Indeed, the overall project is characterised by Russell and the Trustees repeatedly checking that experts were ‘satisfied’ with the design and fabric. Russell was however sanguine: ‘I am glad that there has been approval from so many experts. Ultimately there are bound to be critics but it is the next generation and that one after that, that will really be able to judge’ (Russell to J. R. Scott). Stevenson therefore kept a close eye on Mancini and Robertson’s work, which he professed himself pleased with. Progress was slow, though, with the plaster pattern not being completed until October 1968. As Cant reported to Russell, the Trustees felt vulnerable to criticism, particularly ‘for not having the original pieces of the cross on display to experts, pilgrims and visitors during the interim period’, which appears to evidence a continuing strong interest in the high cross. But for all the effort of the Edinburgh team to perfect an ‘authentic prototype’, museum curators had mixed views about the intrinsic value of Mancini’s model when it came to considering whether they would like it for their collection. Despite the agency of Stevenson, a highly respected Keeper, Mr Pope-Hennessy of the V&A declined the offer of acquiring the Mancini plaster model, deeming it not suitable for the Cast Courts. While we cannot know for sure, many factors may underpin this response. For example, that the V&A was not seeking to expand its collection of casts, or it was not keen on obtaining more Scottish material; in regard to the latter, it had a track record here, stating in 1900 that it did not require many of the ‘Scotch crosses’ (Foster 2015, 87). Or they may have been of the view that Mancini’s model was not sufficiently direct a copy of the original

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because it was moulded from an intermediary, composite cast rather than directly from the original. The National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland remained interested in expanding its collection of early medieval sculptures and would include a good replica when the important original was unobtainable. Stevenson had been ‘anxious’ to obtain a fibreglass copy, and in 1981, its Assistant Keeper Joanna Close-Brooks expressed an interest in the plaster model, ‘because we know that the quality of reproduction of the carving is superior to our own fibreglass cast’ (Close-Brooks to Russell) – proximity to the original mattered if the replica was to be deemed as accurate and, in such a curatorial discourse, as ‘authentic’ as possible. It perhaps seems odd, given the focus on form, and the stated emphasis on Mancini’s template being directly modelled where possible from ‘original workmanship’, that the plaster model was commissioned before the Trustees had decided what material to use for the final cast. While Mancini thought bronze or aluminium only fitting for his work, fibreglass and concrete were mooted. How it came to be concrete is in large measure down to serendipity. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (rcahms), the body appointed to survey, record and create an inventory of Scotland’s monuments and buildings, had been working on Iona’s later medieval monuments since 1964 (Steer & Bannerman 1977). They later expanded their brief to encompass all Iona’s carved stone as part of their Iona Inventory fieldwork. Their subsequent work in recording the St John’s Cross would transform understandings of early medieval sculpture in the Insular world of Scotland and Ireland (Chapter 6). It was still relatively early days in their Iona work, but their expertise obviously mattered. Early in 1969, illustrator Ian G. Scott was invited by the Secretary of the Commission, Dr Kenneth Steer, to accompany him to Mancini’s workshop in Edinburgh to inspect the plaster model – the first Scott knew of the replica project. Scott, a sculptor by training, discussed the possibility of making the cast in concrete. Critically, Scott knew the very people for designing the right concrete. Enter Exposagg Ltd, a company established in 1964 that specialised in the manufacture and erection of structures using in-situ reinforced, sandblasted concrete, as opposed to their manufacture in controlled factory conditions. Their work included the retaining sea wall at the ferry terminal in Stranraer, a number of pedestrian underpasses (East Craig in Edinburgh and Livingston new town) and a footbridge in the village of Stewarton, all in Scotland. Two of Exposagg’s directors were good friends of Ian Scott: the structural engineer John R. Scott (no relation), whom he had met in 1944 in the army, latterly in ‘Ceylon’, and John Lawrie, a specialist in concrete-framed stained glass who in 1970 became Head of the Glass Department at Edinburgh College of Art (see 4).3 Lawrie was a firefighter who had met Ian Scott at an art centre in Eyre Place, Edinburgh. Scott persuaded him to go to Art College, graduating in 1956. Lawrie, Ian Scott and others met regularly in a friend’s house for life drawing, and it was Ian Scott who had introduced Lawrie to John Scott. Lawrie was taught by Mrs Helen Monro Turner (d. 1977) and together in 1956

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they established a shared Workshop in Juniper Green, Edinburgh. Turner had set up the Department of Glass Engraving in Edinburgh College of Art in 1940, and her highly regarded work includes the National Library of Scotland’s very fine stair windows (Blench 2007), which Lawrie helped with, alongside fellow student Charles William Coventry. There were lots of new churches being built in the 1950s and ‘60s, and these were required to include lots of art, so this was a good time to be working in this field. In 1964 Lawrie had sandblasted into glass Helen Turner’s design based on St John’s Cross for the new east window at Insh and Alvie Church (Canmore 14896), interestingly designed at a time betwixt the cross falling and the replica’s creation, and an index of the ongoing interest in this cross. In 1968 he produced a small concrete-and-glass window with a Celtic cross-head for nearby Kingussie Parish Church (Canmore 111518), possibly inspired by his earlier work on the Insh window. John Scott and Lawrie shared an interest in designing mixes of concrete that could be sandblasted with designs, as was being practised on the Continent (hence the ‘exposed aggregate’ of the company’s name). These were people who loved concrete. Ian and John Scott had had a ‘great time’ looking at concrete structures in Ceylon and after the war in Paris: ‘we looked at the Corbusier. So we got all … I got all excited. I like concrete’, Ian Scott reminisced to Foster in 2018. Concrete was a contemporary, technically challenging and, for some, a very respectable material in which to work the replica. 4 John Lawrie on himself I’m quite pleased the way it worked out, and if the people who suddenly find it’s a copy are insulted by that, that’s their mistake. Concrete itself can be abused so badly that it has a reputation. I was a bit confused when I suddenly became the concrete artist. I regard myself as an artist, who works with a variety of media e.g. drawing, painting, glass and concrete … however in my final year (1955 as a student at Edinburgh College of Art) I started to work with concrete and wanted to find out more about the material and went to The Cement and Concrete Association, Rutland Square, Edinburgh. My approach to the organisation as a student artist seemed to intrigue them and they paid for me to attend a ten-day course at the Cement and Concrete Association Research Establishment, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. Whilst on that course I learned how to make high-quality and durable concrete with the correct aggregate sizes and proper proportions of water by use of a hygrometer and other materials such as plasticisers and colouring agents.

… when architects went to the Cement and Concrete Assoc offices – the building

was already leaning towards concrete – they said get John Lawrie, he’s the concrete specialist, and I became the concrete artist.

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In some small way, Lawrie’s involvement in art happened because of the power of earlier replicas. In the words of his son, Adrian: My dad’s career is not typical of men of his generation, left school at 14. National Service, fire brigade. But my dad was exposed to art from a young age when the war was on and he had to go to the plaster court to sign for the ration books in the [Edinburgh] College of Art to sign on, the first time he came across art, so he was exposed to art, and saw people drawing the sculptures, and could not believe people could do that, because he came from humble poor beginnings.

The costs were clearly going to be higher than appreciated earlier, and even after a further donation of £500 from Innes, the Trustees still estimated a large shortfall. Russell indicated to the Trustees in April 1969 that the Russell Trust could be willing to offer support, but that sales of further copies to offset costs was desirable. Today’s visitor to the replica has no sense of what a highly engineered monument it is, and if they recognise it as being of concrete there is a tendency to diminish or dismiss its value (see Chapter 7). John Scott had identified the engineering needs and designed a technical solution that would ensure the replica could withstand winds of up to 120 miles per hour, through prestressing the concrete (Figs 67–8). Such post-tensioning techniques (5) were more commonly used in bridge and related constructions. The grading of the aggregates and design of the concrete mixes would ensure a durable, high-strength concrete, and nickel-steel innards would add strength and resist salt erosion in the marine environment. Scott liked this technical challenge, proudly telling Russell that ‘if a replica … is erected at Iona it will be the first time this cross has been seen standing erect unsupported and this will be due solely to our endeavour and twentieth century technology. The early medieval monks seemed unable to achieve this’. Nor does the visitor have any sense of what was involved in casting the concrete and the complex processes involved in embedding its inner nickel-steel workings, and how unusual it was to cast anything in gelatine on this scale. This was challenging, ground-breaking, experimental and complex work, and there was a pride in doing the job well. This stage of the process depended heavily on the vision, practical skills and ingenuity of John Lawrie: The process of developing and making a gelatine mould of the scale I required had never been done before and I was in unknown territory. My creative input was to be able to see this as a possibility and to make it happen. I was very pleased with my contribution as the manufacture of the reinforcing nickel steel supports and gelatine mould were complex processes.

Lawrie drew on the techniques and lessons he had learnt when working in 1965 on the concrete stained-glass windows of Loretto Chapel, in Musselburgh.

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Figure 67 Example of engineer John R. Scott’s plans for the design of the St John’s Cross replica.

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Figure 68 Example of engineer John R. Scott’s plans for the internal skeleton of the St John’s Cross replica.

As his son Adrian put it, ‘He would not be able to help but put his bit on it, his special bit that makes the John Lawrie touch is there. He wouldn’t be able to help himself, that hand-finishing all that sort of stuff. He’d be doing the best he possibly could’. Lawrie needed expert plaster workers, selecting D. & J. Borthwick. Even for them, though, ‘[t]he scale, the size was unusual. They had never handled that much before … [The old guy] He was very much the boss in that area, but when I told him it was going to be a quarter of a tonne of gelatine, he just retired.’ The job called for skilled craftsmen, team work, and everyone lending a hand: [Jackie Dysdale, the foreman plasterer] was very good at organising early in the morning the set-up for the rest of the day. He would set out a whole lot of containers ready to prepare for the gelatine casting of the cross. This all happened at the weekends because I was still teaching full-time. I would get down there early in the morning and I would work with Jackie for a while getting everything set up and then we would retire to the pub. After a few beers went back, got all the fires going, melting the gelatine. One of the identified men [in the photographs] I think would have been the male clerk/accountant. And they all took part in pouring. The boss and accountant took their jackets off, and all the other labourers, at least seven.

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Beyond the technical qualities of the concrete, its appearance was given much thought and scrutinised by a squad of experts for whom what mattered was that the ‘texture, colour and sculptured detail’ closely matched the original. Reflecting on its qualities in 2000 for a Concrete Society Mature Categories Award, Scott pointed out that ‘[t]he use of gelatine moulds made it possible to reproduce the age-old finish and texture especially the undercut features’ (Scott 2000b). Beyond the flexibility and sensitivity of the gelatine, the surface of the wet concrete was hand-finished to expose the aggregate and replicate what ‘nature had sandblasted’ (see above). Unlike the new, freshly carved monument recreated at Hilton of Cadboll, it can be argued that the replica was created with built-in ‘pastness’. Its castings were of worn carvings, and the surface of the concrete was treated to reinforce this (see 5). The aggregate in the concrete were also long-thought-about and hard-won. The initial aim was to get this from the same geological source in Argyll from which the St John’s Cross was thought to have come. When a local source for the aggregate could not be obtained, such was his attention to detail that John Scott researched a similar geological stratum and then travelled to Wales to inspect it: ‘so in some ways the replica does contain the same type and age of stone as the original’ (John Lawrie). This attention to intrinsic detail satisfied all interested parties.

Erecting the replica in situ In aiming to erect the replica where the original stood, there was a sense that different communities had different needs: Innes saw the benefit of the ‘general public’ being able to see it, while, he told Russell, ‘the Lapidarium will be for the scholar and for a small minority of the general public’. By implication, being in the open in its prime location, all visitors would encounter the replica but only a few would make the effort to look at a stone museum. But writing to Innes as the project neared completion, Russell exhibited archaeological awareness and sensitivity, acknowledging that the location marked the burial place of St Columba and could have had a timber antecedent. Russell also showed an early awareness, in 1966, that archaeological investigation would be needed in advance of the replica being erected, and Stevenson also pushed for this. The Russell family sponsored excavations by Charles Thomas, Richard Reece, Elizabeth Burley, Peter Fowler and Mark Redknap between 1956 and 1976 (O’Sullivan 1998, 8–11; 1999, 224–9). Russell first approached Dr Reece. As part of its approval of the project the Ministry affirmed that it should be excavated by an archaeologist. Cruden, then doubtful of the antiquity of the St John’s Cross basal structure, excavated this himself in early April 1970.5 The upper levels of the basal structure had already been emptied in 1969 when MacLauchlan removed his 1954 work, along with the remaining in-situ shaft. John Scott must have seen this, because his technical drawings (nrhe 359/536/1/3), dated 30 July 1969, include a section through the underlying socket-stones, and

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indicate a sandy layer, ‘charcoal’ layer and then natural sand below this (see Fig. 45). Cruden failed to note these observations, nor to write his work up, and the best sources for his activity are surviving photographs (Fig. 72), his technical notebooks (nrhe Acc no 2001/143), and a description in a letter that he wrote to Cant on 13 April 1970: We investigated the site of the Cross as a preliminary to the erection of the replica. The evidence revealed is of considerable interest and affects the proposal to erect the replica upon it. Briefly, there is an open stone box or small enclosure about 4ft square [sketch attached]. It has corner stones checked and slotted for side slabs, part of which remain. These sit upon a large polygonal stone, as a floor, also slotted for side slabs. In the middle of the “floor” is a socket hole. Beneath the floor stone is another, similar, also socketed, and the 2 sockets are exactly aligned one above the others, to make one deep socket hole. The socket holes are just right for the St John Cross. These 2 socket holes are of sufficient depth and spread to take a high cross. The corner stones were deeply sunk into the ground and checked to fit over the floor stone. All this is unquestionably one construction for a shaft the size of St John’s. Another point of interest is a complete circular groove, 3’9” in diameter, upon the floor stone, as though it were a millstone in the making which came conveniently to hand. We have agreed that an imitation pyramid base should be made for the replica. This is the typical base of the Irish High Crosses and indeed the adjacent St Matthew and St Martin Crosses have them. But now I am inclined to think we have the explanation for the puzzling lack of such a base for St John’s; there never was one. I am seeking advice about the feasibility of this supposition, and it is no more. I could well be wrong, for the Cross has for long been described as standing upon a “box like pedestal”, or “altar”, or words to this effect. But I believe the box was originally open as I have sketched it, and subsequently was filled by wind-blown sand, stones etc. and eventually with concrete by MacAlister after his reconstruction in 1927.

It is not clear why Cruden thought that the ‘box-like pedestal’ did not originally have fitted horizontal slabs on top of it (one half survives), but he was the first to recognise and demonstrate that the composite stone box form was early medieval. This had implications for what form the base of the replica should take, and Exposagg needed a steer from the scholars. The general assumption had been that the stone box was secondary because it was unfamiliar, but other composite bases and related composite stone shrines are now better understood (Fisher 2005, 88–90). Stevenson’s view had been that the box form had ‘no authenticity’ (Scott to Cant) and he favoured a ‘more authentic’ stepped base like the other original bases outside the Abbey (St Martin’s, St Matthew’s: see Fig. 41).

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5 Stage two: Exposagg cast the concrete cross Structural engineer John R. Scott of Exposagg carefully designed the cross so that it would withstand winds of up to 120 miles per hour. The main strength was to come from prestressing by post-tensioning (tensioning of metal cables within the body of the concrete after it was cast). Prestressing meant that the full strength could be obtained between joints, and that the cross could be made in manageable pieces, for casting, transporting and erecting (Scott 2000b). It was to involve running eight high-tensile steel wires up a duct in the centre of the replica, secured at the foundation (‘dead end anchor’) and tightened at the top of the cross-head, then sealed by the finial. This engineering was to be enclosed in a cast of Mancini’s master plaster model. Six pieces of concrete were required: the foundation (to be invisible when reconstructed), the decorated shaft (back and front faces, conjoined), cross-head (ditto), and finial (‘cap’). The shaft and head pieces were to be reinforced with a mesh of small diameter stainless steel with hoops, mainly for handling. The texture and colour of the concrete was to match the original stone as closely as possible: John Lawrie made samples in his Juniper Green workshop in late 1969 that ‘experts’ Mancini, Robertson and Stevenson and others inspected on behalf of the Iona Cathedral Trust. Edinburgh University was paid to test the strength of the concrete.

Figure 69 Jackie Drysdale, David Borthwick and a colleague prepare a plaster casing for the cross-head to receive the gelatine mould.

In early March 1970, the master model was moved the short distance from Mancini’s workshop to D. & J. Borthwick’s, East Silvermills Lane, Stockbridge, Edinburgh. Working with Borthwick’s staff, John Lawrie devised how to mould the model to cast it in concrete, and he was responsible for getting the mix of concrete right, as demanded by John Scott’s design. His estimate was that this would take six weeks to complete. To create the gelatine moulds, the team first covered the master model with shellac and painted it with soft soap in the traditional fashion so that the gelatine could be lifted from it. A section of the model was placed face-up, and the upper half was covered with two inches of clay. The clay was then covered with fibrous plaster to provide a sturdy ‘former’. Within the former, a series of vent holes was created by inserting short clay columns. Once the plaster was dry, the self-supporting plaster former could be turned over, and the clay removed (Fig. 69). Repositioning this former over the recumbent model left a two-inch gap that could be filled with gelatine. It took a team of eight people to pour the molten gelatine through the vent holes at the same time, for there had to be no gaps or lines in the mould (Fig. 70). Once carefully peeled from the master model and turned over, the result was a gelatine mould supported by a plaster former into which the concrete could be poured and shaped (Fig. 71). Lawrie made a grid of 5mm nickel steel (salt-resistant) reinforcing bars that was laid within the body of each side of the cross-head.

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Figure 70 Jackie Drysdale, and an unidentified Borthwick employee create the gelatine mould for the St John’s Cross replica by pouring molten gelatine through vents into the space between the shellac-ed plaster model and the fibrous plaster former.

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Figure 71 The cast concrete shaft lies alongside its gelatine mould.

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Plastic spacers were used at certain points on the cross-head frame, which Lawrie removed when the concrete was poured in and relevelled. Nickel steel ‘U’-bars were built into one half of the shaft. A duplicate cast was made from each gelatine mould before melting down the gelatine to use in creating the next mould. This process was repeated for each of the sides of the shaft and head. The outcome in each case was a reinforced casting that was two inches thick with ‘U’-bars projecting from one half of the shaft. The finial was a hollow, single casting that would conceal the top of the internal post-tensioning. It was only possible to take two casts from such gelatine moulds. John Lawrie recollects that ‘taking the cross out of the gelatine mould it tore the gelatine and when we cast it, it was cast with that problem. It just looked horrible. … When it came out disfigured I regarded it [the second casting] was a disaster and did not want payment for it.’ The second casting was designed to be a reserve copy from which further copies might be made. The undecorated foundation stone also had to be cast in advance. The right ingredients had to be added to the concrete, and in the right proportions: a natural green-coloured dolorite stone aggregate, an air-entraining agent to improve durability, and some black iron oxide pigment for colouring. (After initial trials, Loch Sween sand had been replaced by another material to limit discolouration from salt and heat.) The surface was hand finished to expose the aggregate. Lawrie describes how: … when I was casting it the mix had to be done in proportions, so that you got the proper amount of 3/16 down to dust mixed with the 5/16 aggregate. And water content was very important, so I used the hygrometer to test the water content on 3/16 down to dust. I would subtract that from the water that should be there. I got to the stage when I hardly needed the hygrometer. You’d find me standing at my cement mixer watching my mix, and if it was too wet I would take a handful of 3/16 down, toss it in, until I got it right, if it was too dry I’d take a bucket, chuck water in. I was a human hygrometer … Nature had sandblasted it. What I did was when I cast the material I would put in a release agent so when I exposed it, I then took a brush and scrubbed the surface, so I replicated the original roughage of the cross. The concrete was just off the moulds, and it was face up, and I would brush it with a brush and water, use a sponge, remove the surface water, until I got the effect I wanted it. Once I did that face I would turn it over and do that face. The ‘U-bars helped with subsequent handling and joining the concrete casts (because they extended from one half of the shaft to the other half), but they were also designed to house a flexible stainless-steel tube that was to be inserted up through the body of the cross. The duct, with a wooden bar inside it to keep it rigid, was inserted into the shaft between the ‘U-bars. The back and front faces of the cast were joined with epoxy-resin mortar, and then the interior space surrounding the duct was filled with a high-strength concrete.4 Taken into Borthwick’s yard, a crane lifted the shaft upright and the cross-head was lifted onto it, to test for fit and enable an inspection before the pieces were then mounted on and encased in wood for delivery to Iona.

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Figure 72 Stewart Cruden’s excavations of the base of the St John’s Cross in 1970. The surviving photographs make it clear that Cruden lifted the upper stone to inspect the one underneath, but there is no evidence that the latter was also lifted.

He was slow to be persuaded by Cruden’s findings. Enter the influential independent scholar and member of the Ancient Monuments Board (1964–73) Dr C. A. Ralegh Radford. Cruden described him to Russell as ‘the top man in early Xtian [Christian] Archaeology’; he was best known at the time for his work at Whitby Abbey, Whithorn, Tintagel (wrongly thought to be monastic) and Glastonbury Abbey (Gilchrist 2013). Radford liked the idea of erecting the replica where the original had stood, and in the box-like structure that he (also) believed to be original. Cruden at one point wavered, suggesting rather perversely that it would be best to preserve the original site and erect the cross on a pyramid base (that it had never had) to the side. Russell predicted problems with this approach to Cruden: ‘I would have thought that the long term preservation of the site would be better protected by placing the new replica on the exact spot of the original. Even if, through the passage of time, the details of the story surrounding it get lost, the site would still be marked by the cross itself’. The Trustees decided to employ the original site and box structure. This meant that the St John’s Cross’ two massive foundation stones needed to be removed to insert the replica’s concrete foundations, and that was pretty much the first thing that the Exposagg team needed to do when they arrived on Iona. The technicalities of erecting the replica on Iona are described in 6 and Appendix 1, but for the contemporary drama, magic and attention to detail of the process, we need to watch the colour amateur cine film of events made by Murdo MacKenzie, son of Alastair MacKenzie. The latter’s structural engineering firm, Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd worked with John Scott to erect the replica on Iona. As part of our project, Foster interviewed Murdo MacKenzie

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about the film and project on several occasions, and he kindly gave permission for the film to be made available on YouTube (MacKenzie & Foster). It charmingly transports us back to May/June 1970. We enter another world, when islanders patiently waited in their tractors at Martyr’s Bay beach to pick up their annual supply of coal from a puffer (small single-masted cargo ship) called ‘Kaffir’. Pictures of the coal puffer, and of that past way of life that changed with the building of a bigger pier for the island in the late 1970s, can be found on the walls of many older islanders, as indeed can pictures of the other boats that feature in this film: the ‘King George V’ steamer that brought tourists to Iona, and the red tenders (small boats) managed by locals from which tourists were decanted from the steamer to the island. The film transports the viewer back 50 years to before the road improvements through Mull and the new jetty and new ferries, but the time distance somehow seems greater. The coal puffer had set off from Ayr via Loch Fyne, the Crinan Canal and Bunessan, and arrived three days late. The boat had been delayed because of bad weather – and alleged ‘sort of Para Handy tales’, as one interviewee described it. The flat-bottomed puffer would be beached and the coal unloaded while the tide permitted. With the delay the tides were not so good. The puffer crew and islanders with their tractors were unloading the coal until 4.30 in the morning. This film can be mined for its insights into how the replica was erected – Murdo MacKenzie does after all call it Study in Concrete and its purpose was to record the work of Exposagg in relation to Iona, a place that was particularly special to him and to his family. We journey from preparations in the Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd yard in Motherwell on 22 May 1970, to putting the concrete pieces together for the first time in D. & J. Borthwick’s yard in Silvermills, Stockbridge, Edinburgh (23 May; Fig. 73), and its erection on Iona (30 May to 6 June): its arrival atop the island’s coal, lift off the puffer with a derrick crane onto a trailer, its journey to the Abbey, its erection, and its topping-out ceremony (Fig. 74), insertion of a time capsule, inspection, church dedication, and final tidying up of the basal structure by the Ministry’s squad (21–22 June). There is an enchantment to be gained from watching engineers and craftspeople working as a highly skilled, deft and resourceful team, their interactions with islanders, the Iona Community and visitors, their sweat, their smiles, their humour. There are narratives beyond the technical. Murdo MacKenzie refers to his 37 minutes of film as ‘A wedding and two funerals’, and it is that local Iona dimension that also captured the interest of the Iona adults and children who have watched it with us (Chapter 7). The wedding is that of Doodie (Donald) MacFayden, the ‘very helpful and resourceful’ local haulage contractor who aided Exposagg. The race is on to finish the replica before he is married at the end of the week – it means a night shift to get things done – and his wedding and its well-turned-out but windblown guests add local colour to the film (Fig. 75). The piper was Calum MacPherson from Mull, the Abbey’s master mason. We may not be able to hear his tune, but we can imagine the sound and ceremony.

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Figure 73 John Lawrie supervises the lowering of the concrete crosshead of the St John’s Cross replica onto its shaft in Borthwick’s yard, Edinburgh.

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Figure 74 Toppingout ceremony of the replica cross, presided over on the scaffolding by Keith Edwards, Iona Community Warden, and Remo Tonetti of Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd.

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Figure 75 A primary school pupil’s storyline for the events leading to the erection of the St John’s Cross replica on Iona.

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6 Stage three: Exposagg erect the replica on Iona Erection of the replica on Iona involved John R. Scott and Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd, also part of Exposagg Ltd. Director Alastair Mackenzie was accompanied to Iona by three hand-picked staff: foreman Joe Finlay, concrete finisher Reno Tonietti and labourer Jock Logan. Before leaving for Iona, the Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd team tested the equipment it would use to lift the replica cross into place. Arriving on Iona, the first task was to prepare the concrete foundations. First, they had to remove the basal structure of the original St John’s Cross. The above-ground remains of the box-like structure had been lifted by Cruden during his advance excavation. The team lifted these stones with block and tackle, and an enlarged rectangular pit was dug out. Lined with a wire basket, this was filled with concrete leaving a rectangular socket in the middle into which the anchoring foundation stone for the concrete cross was to be inserted. All the concrete was mixed by hand in proportions cement to sand to gravel of 1:2:4. The boxes containing the cross parts were lifted by derrick crane from the coal puffer they arrived in (Fig. 76) onto MacFayden’s trailer. They were driven to the Abbey where scaffolding had been set up to lower these carefully to the ground. The eight high-tensile wires that would perform the post-tensioning needed to be threaded up the hollow concrete centre of the cross. A scaffolding tower was erected where the cross was to be erected. First, the wires were attached to the rectangular concrete foundation stone. These wires were then threaded up through the steel duct in the centre of the raised shaft as it was lowered onto the foundation, where it was grouted with epoxy resin, a process that was repeated with the cross-head. Once the resin had set overnight, the wires now running from the foundation up the shaft and cross-head were tensioned at the top of the cross-head and surplus wire was cut off. After a topping-out ceremony, when the finial was (temporarily) placed on the top and tapped into place by Keith Edwards,

The first funeral is MacFayden’s concrete mixer, ceremoniously towed to the Abbey, and later dragged away in disgrace. MacKenzie’s team had to do all the mixing by hand. The second funeral was of Louise, Duchess of Argyll, second wife of the 11th Duke. She was buried on the Friday morning, while MacFayden’s wedding was in the afternoon. The Abbey was full of guests, people who encountered the replica for the first time.

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Figure 76 The replica of the St John’s Cross arrives in the hold of the puffer, on top of the island’s coal supply.

Warden of the Iona Community (see Fig. 74), the final details needed to be completed. A time capsule was added (a tin with coins and perhaps a note) and grouting was poured down the stainless-steel tube that the tensile wires ran up through. The finial could finally be secured. Having removed the scaffolding, the final step was to restore the basal structure at the bottom. It was a rush job that had to be done before MacFayden’s wedding on 6 June, but the Ministry afterwards sent its own masons from Dunstaffnage to tidy up and consolidate the basal structure.

For the love of Iona Iona was special to Russell, Innes and John Scott. This was a place they and their families had long came on holiday, and Scott had an intergenerational interest in Iona: ‘he was a proper protestant … and of course he had strong connections with Iona through the family – ministers mainly. It was special to him, it was his home, and the cross was his, and I was the labourer’, John Lawrie somewhat modestly told us. On being approached about the job, Scott had written quickly to Russell expressing his firm’s interest in the work (consultation with fellow directors was for later), and played his Iona card: ‘I was on holiday on the island

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the year after the collapse and besides photographing the parts gave some thought to the structural aspects of putting the pieces together and strengthening the whole. I am not a member of the Community but have friends who are closely associated with the former and present leader’. John Scott’s wider motivation is captured in a later observation by Russell, who had bumped into Scott while on holiday on Iona: ‘An extraordinarily nice man, tremendously interested in the job from all sorts of aspects, one of them being the prestige value to his firm if they can do it successfully’. This was no ordinary job, and for Scott ‘I must say an attractive aspect of this job is the interesting problems it poses’; and of course he had a genuine interest in Iona and its cross. Islander Margaret who met John Scott on his many visits to Iona observed ‘It was more than a technological feat, there was an emotional attachment, you know, he wasn’t just talking about ... concrete, you know, no, for him, it was an important achievement in his life’. Scott certainly dedicated himself to the project; he also did not charge the Trustees for his design time, just expenses, mainly for visits to Iona, Loch Sween, and some office costs. For the rest of his life he also regularly visited the cross to check up on its condition, and he undertook repairs where needed.6 His archive has many pictures of his friends admiring his cross. Alastair MacKenzie first visited Iona in 1929, and his family had holidayed in Iona since the 1950s; the project was therefore also very special to them. As his son Murdo described it: It was more than a job. I mean, it was an opportunity to make a bit of history, I suppose, and have a part and…even a small part in the making of a bit of history. And it’s not something that kind of happens to you very often … it was important to us because of the connection that we were developing with … with Iona and its people … obviously we were getting to know a lot of the natives.

Through the replica project new networks of connections with Iona and its people were generated and cemented, in all senses of that word. Overall the project cost £4700 pounds (£1856 for Mancini, £2844 for Exposagg).7 Others made in-kind contributions too: Glenlight Shipping Company carried the replica for free atop its coal-load to Iona, charging only for the Ayr stevedors (the idea to carry the replica to the island this way came from Doodie MacFayden); and Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd only charged materials and labour, and at net costs. Even the Ministry relented and contributed, reimbursing the Trustees for the £137 it had charged to remove the lower portion of the shaft, ‘the stump’, when Mancini was casting. They too made in-kind contributions by reinstating the box-like base. Robertson and Cruden also made very individual professional contributions, not least Robertson in his work with Mancini on the replica design (see above). Working up who paid for the replica by matching up donations to the costs is tricky, but it is clear the project only happened because of Innes’ accumulator fund, some (perhaps all?) of this through the Kilgarth Fund. His contributions appear to total £2250. Glasgow University, a member of the Iona Cathedral

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Trust, represented at this time by the professor of Scottish History, Archie Duncan, donated £200, and the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, and Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, were each charged £200 to reproduce the replica in fibreglass, which helped to offset the costs. The Trustees needed to fund the shortfall and tried and failed over the years that followed to sell the second copy and further replicas (see below). As early as 1961 archival sources note Russell’s willingness to pay someone to copy the cross, but in October 1970 Russell wrote to Innes, ‘So far I have not contributed anything at all but have promised Cant that the Russell Trust will help once those whom I feel ought to help have, I hope, contributed something’, and he made a £200 ‘temporary payment’ with the offer to pay more if eventually needed. If he was called upon, or the Trustees paid from their General Fund, is not clear.

Material matters, first impressions Modern understandings of authenticity, such as the concept of ‘pastness’, place an emphasis on materiality and how the thing in question is experienced. Patina and vegetation growth are valued for their aesthetic qualities and the way they subtly convey age (Holtorf 2013, 435–7). The risk is that if something looks too new then its perceived authenticity is in some way reduced, regardless of its calendrical age. Russell articulated this concern writing to Mancini after seeing test casts made from Mancini’s model: he was thrilled, but ‘my guess is that the only criticism will be that it is too perfect!’. He expressed his relief to John Scott that texture and colour of the concrete was closer to original stone than the plaster model, and therefore ‘not subject to quite the same criticism that I had feared’, while he told Innes, ‘It looks very new just now as obviously it is … and in a year or two when it weathers a bit and perhaps grows a little more lichen on it, it will probably look as fine as it has ever looked in its life’. Some did apparently criticise it as looking too new, but less than a year after it was erected Russell told Scott, ‘I am quite delighted with the cross … it has mellowed in some indefinable way’, noting that the joints were now less visible. Looking a bit new to begin with was compensated for Russell and its creators by the knowledge that the new cross could stand for a thousand years and could therefore be admired in ways that the original had not been. This they hoped would help to promote an understanding of the value of the original and its craftsmanship. This illustrates the way in which replicas, indeed things more generally, need to ‘feel’ old to be deemed authentic and acquire value. Herein, though, emerges another tension: how obvious should it be to the unsuspecting visitor that something is a copy and not the original? Russell captured this in a letter to Innes in 1972 when he said, ‘I am sure a great many people who see it won’t realise that it is a copy which, in some ways, is a pity but perhaps in other ways the best guarantee of its success’. We noted the earlier concern that if the replica was not placed where the original had stood this might confuse future generations. Lawrie had been in no doubt when he determined how to cast the cross in concrete that the

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joints should be visible, effectively self-documenting testimony to its modernity. The St John’s Cross replica was designed to be as truthful to the workmanship of the original as possible within the boundaries of the makers’ knowledge and of working with modern materials and technology, but it was never intended to deceive. It was an original in its own right and remains an original.

Celebrating the ‘virtually impossible’ The creators wanted to tell a story that emphasised the importance of the original, the story of the replica, and the efforts of the people behind it. As Russell observed, Mancini and John Scott, ‘I think one can fairly say, have been inspired by Iona and its influence to accomplish something which was by the experts, pronounced virtually impossible’. There were some different target audiences and different agendas. Russell actively encouraged Robertson to write about what was learnt academically from his work with Mancini (see above). For visitors to Iona, Russell envisaged a revised pamphlet or booklet like The Fallen Cross, something more popular than an article in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, but this did not transpire. For a wider and primarily national audience, Russell and the Iona Cathedral Trust – essentially its Secretary, Harry Cant – encouraged articles in The Scots Magazine, Coracle, the magazine of the Iona Community, and Life +Work, the magazine of the Church of Scotland (Reid 1970; Anon 1970; Life + Work 1971a; 1971b). They also sought coverage by the press, before and after the replica’s erection and on its dedication. Cant was particularly keen to attract further donations towards the Trust’s shortfall. Cant later lamented to a Ministry official that in terms of coverage they were out-competed by the 1970 World Cup, General Election and a strike. Cruden had ambitions to make the story of the replica a special feature of his planned future carved stone exhibition. As he wrote to Cant on 13 April 1970, ‘the making of the replica, the technical and detective work involved, is a remarkable achievement of Mr Mancini and Mr Robertson, and the public is much interested in this sort of thing nowadays. We would like to do it proud.’ This did not materialise. Islanders and the Iona Community were invited to attend the dedication of the replica after the regular church service on 14 June, presided over by the Very Rev Dr Longmuir, the previous Moderator of the Church of Scotland and Chair of the Iona Cathedral Trust. Filmed by MacKenzie on his cine camera, and at the same time recorded by him on a tape recorder, the congregation and its guests processed out of the west end of the Cathedral on a bright sunny day. The other guests came from the Iona Cathedral Trust, Ancient Monuments Board, Exposagg and family members. George Mancini and David Russell and his wife were also among those invited. The Rev. Ian Reid, Leader of the Iona Community, made a reading and Harry Cant spoke for the Trustees. Opening his dedication with thanks to St Columba for coming to the island and bringing ‘the good news of Jesus Christ’ with him, Longmuir gave thanks to God ‘For the skill of hand,

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mind of those who first carved and erected the St John’s Cross to stand as a memorial of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ’ and ‘For the differing skills of those who had perfected the new cross’. The celebrations continued over tea in the reconstructed cloister, again captured in MacKenzie’s film. For John Scott, his personal and professional satisfaction with the project is evidenced in how he submitted the replica for awards, and no doubt his hand lies directly or indirectly behind it featuring in glorious colour in the October 1972 The Blue Circle Group (Cement Marketing Company) calendar. With an emphasis on the concrete technology and unusual nature of the project, the replica received a Judges’ Mention in 1971 for projects completed in 1970 (Cement and Concrete Association 1971a), and in 2000/2001 the Certificate of Excellence in the Mature Structures Category, awarded to celebrate 30 years since erection (see Fig. 11; Scott 2000a). In the same year Scott won the Institution of Structural Engineers Scottish Branch Services Award for his work for the replica and particularly for his activities in developing international relations (Scotsman 2012). Scott also apparently submitted the replica for The Cembureau (European Cement Association) Award for outstanding concrete buildings in old or historic surroundings, as part of the European Architectural Heritage Year 1975. In this instance, there is no evidence in the archives of a firm submission, or outcome.

MacLeod and the St John’s Cross So, where was George MacLeod in all this? MacLeod saw Iona as a place of living, spiritual pilgrimage that should not be subservient to the island’s historical and antiquarian interests. His robust and sometimes colourful views in this regard frame the debates about how the Abbey might be reconstructed to meet the needs of the Iona Community and pilgrims while balancing these with the needs to respect the cultural significance of the place (Chapter 3). As such, MacLeod did not think that the funds collected by the Trustees to rebuild the Abbey under the auspices of the Iona Appeal Trust could be used for the replica, but he did try to persuade people to contribute, such as wealthy oil millionaire Mrs Dale Owen. Owen reportedly was much against the replica as opposed to the original. In his own way, MacLeod was actually very helpful and appreciated as such by Russell. MacLeod travelled the globe as an ambassador for the work of the Iona Community. He also recognised the special place that Iona had in the hearts and minds of the people he met in this role. He saw that copies of the replica cross might appeal to some of the folk he met: ‘there are places in the States and the Dominions that would consider an exact replica of anything standing in Iona’, he told Russell in 1966. As he travelled the world in the 1970s, he made repeated efforts to try to find a buyer for the surplus second concrete copy. He tried to persuade Rev A. F. Swearingen from Parkway Presbyterian Church, Texas, to get a replica of the cross, rather than a replica of the Lipchitz Statue that his Church was keen to acquire. In 1972 when travelling in Australia and the States, MacLeod made sure he had pictures and costings to hand for anyone he could

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get interested in the second copy. There was also interest from Columbia College, South Carolina and Auckland College in New Zealand. As late as 1980, well into his 80s, MacLeod was again trying (unsuccessfully) to find a home for the second copy, this time to Kirkridge, Pennsylvania.

New life, new values The replica was created by Iona lovers rather than permanent residents of the small island community, or members of the Iona Community religious group who had occupied the Abbey. Their ambition, guided and tempered by scholars, museum and heritage professionals, was for the replica to be true to the original, in location, form, design, texture, geology and colour. For all involved at this time, these intrinsic qualities, and their labours in achieving them, made for the creation of an ‘authentic replica’. Yet, at the same time, they had an eye to the experience of the cross, that it should not look and feel new. Some material qualities of ‘pastness’ were incorporated into its design, and there was a relief and pleasure as it quickly appeared to look like it was aging. The significance of the biography of the St John’s Cross, as evidenced in the surviving fragmented and scarred fabric of the original, was never on the agenda. The contemporary and painful loss of the original in situ was to be redeemed with a whole, robust and magnificent replica that embodied, if not directly replicated, the skills of the early medieval masons. Emotionally and physically, there was a gap to fill that was greater than the monument itself: ‘The whole site sadly misses St. John’s Cross and I believe that when the copy is made and re-erected, it will have quite an electrifying effect not only on the whole area but on everyone who sees it. At least I hope so’, Russell told Innes in 1969. D. F. O. Russell’s determination brought the project to fruition. The successful creation of the replica effectively ‘caps’ the twentieth-century recreation and reinvention of Iona Abbey, and the role of the influential Russell family in that enterprise. There is a certain symmetry in the replica being created outside the reconstructed St Columba’s Shrine, erected in 1954–5 with funds from Russell’s father, Sir David Russell, shortly before he died in 1956. The shadow falls once more on the shrine. The project also gives a voice too to the important role of the Iona Cathedral Trust who, today, have a somewhat overlooked presence on the island. The unique and experimental production of a cross in this way – designing and crafting the model, the use of such large gelatine moulds, scaleddown application of post-tensioned prestressed concrete engineering, selection of aggregates and design of the concrete mixes, getting the replica cross to a remote island, erection using traditional techniques, and all for a modest budget (Scott 1974; 2000b) – involved considerable ingenuity and creativity. This reminds us of the technical feats and experimentation of the original. Challenges thought to be almost insuperable were overcome. This required significant levels of personal and institutional investment that spanned a network of important and influential people across Scotland. The significance attached to the original by

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educated, well-connected and sometimes affluent people, with their desire for ‘academically designed restoration’, stimulated new knowledge and thinking about the original. But as we shall see in the next chapter, further intellectual and physical journeys were yet to come. 1 Not

to be confused (as Walker 2000, 520) with John Laurie, a constructional engineer who worked at the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works and was ultimately a director of Exposagg and executor for J. R. Scott. 2 This occurs later for the second copy, since the priority was to get the replica erected on Iona. 3 Barber is incorrect when he says that Cruden undertook these excavations in 1962 (Barber, 1981, 100), repeated in associated hes photographic records assembled by the Central Excavation Unit as part of the Kilnave research. These photographs date to 21–22 July 1970 when Cruden and a team from Castle Dunstaffnage returned to consolidate and improve the presentation of the base of the St John’s Cross, as filmed by Murdo MacKenzie in 1970 (MacKenzie and Foster 2018 ) 4 J. R. Scott visited regularly and kept an eye on the replica. In 1992 he noticed a pin-size hole on the top of the cross arm which had allowed some water ingress. He sealed this with a low viscosity epoxy resin. 5 Exposagg’s costs are based on their third invoice.

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6 From out of the shadows? Just look at me now. I am standing proud once more, but so many of my stories are still hidden St John’s Cross

It was 1990 before the fallen St John’s Cross again stood proud on Iona, with architect-designed prostheses holding it upright in a remodelled Abbey Museum. This chapter focuses on the original stone cross, specifically how its meanings and values have changed since the 1970s. Transformer considers the game-changing implications of the rcahms’s protracted survey of the Iona monuments. Working on Iona since the early 1960s, they first published Late Medieval Monumental Sculpture in the West Highland (Steer & Bannerman 1977), and then in 1982 their Iona Inventory, Argyll Volume 4. Reunited speaks to what the 1990 return of the original to Iona involved, what it meant to different communities of interest, and the practical consequences of different sets of values. Place in the world reflects on the nature of more recent scholarship and the differences this can now make to thinking about the St John’s Cross. Chapter 6 closes with The Iona brand, which reflects on how and why the monument became the icon of Iona. This lays the ground for consideration of its intangible and spiritual values in Chapter 7. Despite this iconic status, it will emerge that the original St John’s Cross is still far from out of the shadows in terms of full appreciation of its cultural significance.

Transformer How quickly we take new discoveries and approaches for granted. How rarely we consider what gaining this new knowledge and insights involved in practice, what this meant for the people directly involved, and their communities of interest. Too often, that painstaking yet transformative story is not visible. By dint of professional practice, researcher and institutional stories are not told or recorded with a view to posterity (see Wolfhechel Jensen 2012). This is certainly the case for the St John’s Cross. Turn to the succinct eight-page description, analysis, detailed accompanying footnotes, drawings and photographs prepared by investigator Ian Fisher, illustrator Ian G. Scott and photographer Geoffrey Quick for the rcahms as part of Argyll 4. The hard-won evidence and interpretations are there – and will repay, indeed require, repeated reading because of the density and complexity of the fragmentary evidence – but the story of the discovery, the people involved, their trials and tribulations are missing. Arguably, the international significance of their findings is also ‘lost’ among Iona’s embarrassment of monumental riches but alleviated a little by Early Medieval Sculpture in the West Highlands and Islands (Fisher 2001).

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The rcahms 1982 Inventory is a landmark in terms of understanding the St John’s Cross, and also in terms of how carved stones have subsequently been recorded and communicated to the public (Scott 1997). Resource-intensive drawing techniques allow the monument’s original shape, scale, composite construction and carved detail to be appreciated. Ultimately, this approach highlights the importance of ‘thinking through recording’, how close and extended observation and drawing of something can lead to new insights. Commissioner for the rcahms, Professor Rosemary Cramp, is to be credited with having made the case for drawings to be produced that explain the monument’s complex structure rather than relying just on photographs. Combined, the fragments of the St John’s Cross came to speak of how the world’s first Celtic cross was created (Chapter 4). By the end of their labours, the skilled, patient and, at times, dogged Fisher and Ian G. Scott were able to present convincing structural evidence for why the St John’s Cross is the first free-standing cross in the Irish world. Their emerging ideas were discussed with Kenneth Steer, Stevenson, George Henderson and Isabel Henderson. In 1956, Stevenson had already suggested St John’s was the (world’s) earliest ringed cross, but the rcahms team found missing fragments that provided new and persuasive evidence that this was the case, and for the secondary nature of the ring. In the twentieth century, art-historians became interested in early medieval sculpture in Britain and Ireland, particularly the evolution of the distinctive high-cross form. The Iona monuments were critical to this debate, much of which centred around the date and evolution of the form of the cross, and respective roles of Ireland and Scotland in this development (Fisher 2001, 6). In a seminal paper, Stevenson had bucked the dominant academic discourse when he considered the sequence from a Scottish perspective, bolstered by the likelihood that the Book of Kells was also made on Iona (Stevenson 1956). His circumspect conclusions challenged the rationale for the ringed cross originating in Ireland and coming to Scotland. He brought forward the dating of the earliest Iona high crosses to around ad 800, and in his argument for the ordering of the crosses, placed St John’s at the beginning of the ringed sequence. He raised the possibility of Pictish influences for the snake-and-boss ornament (see Fig. 57) and floated the suggestion that the ring form was also borrowed from Pictland. By 1956 the fragmentary masterpiece had begun to push intellectual boundaries and had emerged out of the shadow of Irish high crosses. We saw in Chapter 4 how the shaft and miscellaneous fragments of the cross were gradually recognised by antiquaries as belonging together, and how Macalister reconstructed the cross in 1927. To make sense of the cross in the 1970s, the focus of attention needed to shift to its mortice-and-tenon joints. Critically, in 1972 Fisher astutely recognised a missing ring-fragment among the hundreds of ex-situ carved stones lying around the Abbey on Iona. This tenoned fragment fitted into a mortice on one of the cross arms, was the right diameter for the anticipated ring and, interestingly, was a different geology to the main cross. Scott had previously recognised that a stone with a big boss

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Figure 77 rcahms reconstruction of how the ring quadrants were inserted into the composite cross-head of the St John’s Cross. The inset photograph shows the surviving ring fragment inserted into the upper arm of the west face of the cross-head.

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lying on the shelves in St Ronan’s Church was probably the missing centre of the east face of St John’s Cross. In 1973, he eventually convinced his boss Steer this was the case by drawing the fragments and the space they left. Fisher brought these two discoveries to wider public attention in 1975 when he spoke at the Anniversary Meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. He shared the new evidence that, because of the size of the mortices and tenons, the upper ring quadrants were aesthetic and could be fitted into place after the cross-head was erected. By contrast, the lower quadrants needed to be inserted when the upper cross-head was slotted into the lower section of the cross (Fig. 77). He argued that these quadrants, with their larger tenons and mortices, were designed to offer structural support. It was when Ian G. Scott and fellow illustrator John Stevenson were recording the fragments of the head in 1979 that Scott suggested that two stages of carving might make sense of a ‘seemingly impractical sequence of mortices and tenons suggesting a very precarious cross’. This would have been avoided if the stone block had been carved to a cross-shape; Fisher and Stevenson agreed (rcahms 1982, 12; Scott 1996, 10–12). The conclusion was that the St John’s Cross had probably fallen and then had been repaired (see 7). In 1981, Scott also examined Mancini’s casts to check his observations. The St John’s Cross was now more than an artistic masterpiece. With the addition of a ring to a monument originally designed without one (see Fig. 45),

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7 Summary of the strands of the cumulative evidence

for the argument that the St John’s Cross fell down and was repaired, including with an ‘over-ingenious’ ring (rcahms 1982, 201) (Fig. 78)

Figure 78 Cross-sections of St John’s Cross with a key to the evidence for its eighth-century damage and repair.

it became recognised as arguably the earliest ringed high cross in the Irish world, an experimental and original monument influenced by craftspeople from Pictland, and likely to date to the mid-eighth century, according to the art-historical analysis of Ian Fisher. As a reconstruction drawing, the St John’s Cross could now justifiably open discussion of the early Church’s role in the creation of Scottish art (Higgitt 1990; cf. Brydall 1889, 1). Its box-like base,

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From out of the shadows ? 143 1 Part

of the tenon has sheared off; what survives is undercut and narrows. Some damage to bottom of shaft as well. The two socket-stones of the composite boxlike base have been designed to tightly fit this irregular shape.

2

The uncarved lower panel of the shaft, something often visible on a cross, is obscured by the composite box-like base; base is designed to offer additional structural support.

3

Highly significant junction but critical evidence is lost here: the lower arm has not survived and the previously photographed tenon at the top of the shaft (Fig. 56) was chiselled off during repairs in 1954. The inference is that a single-piece shaft and lower arm broke, and a new lower arm was inserted. The decoration at the top of the surviving shaft suggests some loss, presumably to create the new tenon over which the replacement arm could be placed. Mortices for the inserted ring, its lower quadrants offering some structural support for cross arms, were rebated into the edges of the shaft’s top tenon, observed by Stevenson (1956, 87) who saw the tenon before it was removed (Phillips 1958, pl. iv). This multiple junction of tenons and mortices was far from ideal for it introduced a considerable structural vulnerability at the top of the shaft (rcahms 1982, 201, fn 38).

4

This socket is assumed to be primary, i.e. the massive cross-arm originally slotted onto the shaft, as in the earlier St Oran’s Cross.

5

Deep mortices for the ring quadrants cut into the underarms of the cross; lower quadrants can only be inserted when the upper cross-head was inserted into the in-situ lower cross-arm (Fig. 77).

6

Shallower mortices for pivoting ring quadrants into place; not structural and mortices vary in size (Figs 48 & 77).

7

Inserted ring quadrants (part of one arc survives) are a different geology to shaft and cross-head – locally available stone rather than imported from the mainland.

8

The decorative finial is different geology, again local stone; its joint crosses decoration; the tenon is in the upper stone, minimising further loss of original carvings when top arm reworked.

established during the replica project as belonging early in the history of the cross, could also be seen to have several parallels (Fisher 2005). With the work of the rcahms, the St John’s Cross had emerged out of the shadows of the better-preserved St Martin’s and Kildalton Crosses, and upstanding crosses in Ireland, and attracted renewed international scholarly debate. Not least, it had implications for the context in which the Book of Kells was produced (Fisher

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1994). There are, though, scholars who disagree with the idea that St John’s Cross was necessarily the first ringed high cross. The ringed form is certainly not new but its translation into a freestanding ringed monument was novel. Scholars debate whether the form was experimental (it is so complex and ambitious), whether the ring was secondary (there are arguments for and against it being a translation into stone of established carpentry techniques, or being simply a response to available stone), or who argue for the involvement of Gaelic (Irish) rather than Pictish sculptors (Kelly 1991; 1993; Mac Lean 1993; Stalley 2020 forthcoming). There is no doubt that the ultimate, complex form of this highly ambitious cross is unique. Arguments and counter-arguments are impossible to prove, but the theory developed by Fisher and Scott was developed by the people who have had the most extended and intimate familiarity with the cross when in fragments (i.e. prior to 1990), one of whom (Scott) trained as a sculptor, and the direct evidence for their ideas was subjected to considerable expert peer review in advance of publication. The inner workings of the St John’s Cross had therefore found a voice, to profound effect, in predominantly art-historical scholarly circles, and some sense of its physicality and materiality is captured in the pages of rcahms 1982. What is missing though is any real sense of the very fractured nature of what survived of the cross – it was in 45 pieces – many of the fractures dating from its twentieth-century misadventures. Also missing is the information captured in the fabric of the stone for its earlier reconstructions: the chiselling away of the original tenons in 1954, holes drilled for internal metal dowels and external brackets, scoring of internal surfaces to receive cement. A later, small, worked cavity on an inside face of the newly discovered central-boss fragment, possibly for a pivot, and two later small cavities on the outside of the upper cross arm, had been recognised but such biographical details did not excite interest at this time. One of us (Foster) became aware of these later features when looking online at the Discovery Programme’s 3d model of the cross and this prompted her personal hard look at the available primary evidence for all the original cross fragments (https://sketchfab.com). Most of this evidence is now inaccessible. It cannot be seen by standing in front of the cross: it is too high up, blocked by the metal prostheses that support and reconstruct the form of the cross, or sealed under filler. On the one hand, Foster’s interrogation of the fragments from available published and largely unpublished sources (Appendix 2) has magnified her appreciation of the rcahms’ forensic detective work. On the other hand, it was really only her own extended and embodied experience of the fragments, in their various physical forms, that enabled her to fully understand (and ultimately accord with) the phenomenally detailed observation and analysis that is captured by the rcahms Inventory entry. Fisher and Scott still talk with passion about this project, and for good professional and personal reasons. In so many regards their personal creative and intellectual journeys invite connections with the efforts of the eighth-century monks and sculptors, as well as the twentieth-century replica makers.

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Reunited If art and architectural historians extracted meaning and value from the cross in its fragmented state, their work still sought to illustrate it in its full, reconstructed form. In parallel, the Iona Cathedral Trust wanted the stone cross to stand upright back on Iona once more, and as soon as possible. Everyone wanted to make it whole again, in all senses. The fragments needed to be reunited with each other, and in their ‘home’. Like the replica, and indeed the reconstruction of the monument’s original form, the technical and craft skills involved in this stage of the life of the St John’s Cross are essentially untold. It took a long time to make the reconstruction happen because everyone was challenged by conserving the fallen Cross, removing the work of generations of twentieth-century craftsmen, devising a technique to reconstruct it, and finding and locating a place to display that reconstruction. After the 1957 fall, the cross fragments lay on the ground for three years before they were moved under cover, no doubt sustaining some further damage. As Chapter 3 described, finding a solution for Iona’s carved stones was never easy, not least finding an indoors home for anything on the scale of the St John’s Cross. In 1969 the Trustees wanted to exhibit the lower shaft and the seven main pieces of the original cross in the Cloisters; they did not want them to leave the Abbey. However, by 1970 the Ministry needed to move them for safe-keeping to the floor of St Ronan’s Church. Here, in 1974, they were joined by a large fragment missing for more than a century that had been found by the Iona Community while digging a trench in front of the west range doorway in 1969. The deteriorating condition of St Ronan’s led to rust-staining on the cross. Reluctantly, the Trustees agreed to its temporary removal to Edinburgh for conservation, and until a decision could be made about its future. The Trustees were nervous about losing ownership and custody, but everyone wanted the St John’s Cross returned to Iona as soon as possible. The question was how? The cross fragments were transferred in 1975 to Newbattle Abbey on the outskirts of Edinburgh, where the Scottish Development Department (sdd) had laboratory and storage space. Here began the painstaking and slow task of carefully liberating the original stone from its internal and external metal fittings, and removing all traces of the ‘Portland cement, ciment fondu, cement concrete and a lime-sand cement concrete in conjunction with a bitumous type adhesive’ (John Gentles, Higher Conservator). Ian Scott and his colleague John Stevenson from the rcahms had the opportunity to do further measured drawings. A solution was then needed for the consolidation and mounting together of its 45 fragments. The sdd architects had ideas and devised possible schemes, but the Infirmary building was considered too small and the sdd did not want to disrupt the existing, hard-won display of carved stones. By December 1981, the sdd had honoured its commitments to conserve the separate cross fragments, having undone the work of past interventions. The Trustees took the next stage into their own hands, deciding to resurrect an idea proposed by its own architect,

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Ian Lindsay, just after the Second World War. This would involve removing part of the attic of the Infirmary, to create height for the St John’s Cross, and creating a viewing gallery at one end. The way-ahead was possible when a Trustees’ Appeal Committee, which had the support of no less a figure than us President Ronald Reagan, successfully secured funding (ict Appeal 1985). For the works on the Infirmary and St John’s Cross they needed £120,000. The donations for the St John’s Cross included a very generous £25,000 from the Trustees Savings Bank (tsb) Foundation. Plans evolved and, with the sdd unable to meet the Iona Cathedral Trust’s desired timescale for the consolidation, the St John’s Cross fragments left their embrace in July 1989. The first stop was the tsb’s headquarters at Henry Duncan House in George Street, Edinburgh, where the fragments were temporarily put on display, following the layout of the rcahms drawings and reconstruction. As the Iona Cathedral Trust’s press release acknowledged, there was a nice symmetry here: Reverend Henry Duncan (1774–1846), after whom the tsb headquarters was named because he launched saving banks, was also the Minister responsible for the resurrection of the Anglo-Saxon Ruthwell Cross and its subsequent care. The Trustees’ advice from the sdd was that any solution for the display of the St John’s Cross should seek to present it upright with all sides visible and free of ‘artificial devices’ that obscured the original fabric. The Trustees had sourced a proposal for what might be described as a ‘glass-envelope’ reconstruction for the cross. This effectively meant wedging the cross fragments between two panes of structural glass and etching on this the missing panels of design. They appointed John Renshaw as their architect in 1988 (first working for Scottish Conservation Partnership set up by Yeoman McAllister, then from 1992–2000 in his personal capacity). Renshaw had earlier worked for Crichton Lang, Willis and Galloway, whose partner Crichton Lang had succeeded Ian Lindsay in working on the Abbey (from the early 1980s much of this work was undertaken by Graham T. Smith). Renshaw recognised the large number of practical and ethical issues that this idea raised and, as he told Foster in 2019, he was moved by the fragments, which deserved an engineered solution that allowed their powerful presence to speak. This became a passion project as Renshaw, working with designer and metalworker Ronnie Watts and Harley Haddow structural engineers, came up with the solution that we see today (Fig. 79). A light steel structure and transom support the cross-arms with minimal physical and aesthetic intervention to the historic fabric, while plain etched glass panels give a sense of the missing cross-head and ring. It was not possible on structural grounds to incorporate the surviving fragmentary stone arc. The rcahms undertook a last-minute survey of the details of the empty mortices of the cross-head (now largely obscured by the removable glass plates). What may have been initial concerns from the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland about what was proposed led them to have a useful wider discussion about the protection of carved stones, particularly St John’s Cross and Sueno’s Stone, near Forres. If they had residual issues, this is not recorded (dd30/30). The rcahms had asked the Trustees to make casts

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Figure 79 The east face of St John’s Cross, as mounted in the Iona Abbey Museum in 1990.

of the structural details because of their concern about the tell-tale mortices being obscured from public view, but these were apparently not made. Today, of course, we would use 3d scanning to record and share such information (see Discovery Programme scan). The political and emotional importance of the return of the St John’s Cross to Iona in 1990 was such that the Trustees commissioned and then sold a video about the later stages of its conservation and return, The Journey Home (ict 1991). This film in various ways mirrors Murdo Mackenzie’s homemade and silent

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Figure 80 Unveiling of the reconstructed St John’s Cross in 1990, showing its west face.

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film about the journey of the replica to Iona. However, this somewhat dreamy and sentimental video, with its poetic and idyllic views of Iona accompanied by folk music from Phil Cunningham, was professionally made. The emphasis is on a loved place where we can find the highest expression of Celtic culture. We are told of the skills of the ‘cunning [ancient] craftsman’ while we watch and absorb the quiet skills of London-based conservators Deborah Carthy and Sarah Hodgson, architects and local craftsmen, such as Attie McKechnie, who was the Iona Cathedral Trust’s foreman. We witness their struggle, which is sometimes excruciating and nerve-wracking to watch: the heavy and fragile pieces of the cross are sweatily shuffled out of C & J Brown’s Edinburgh warehouse (a property owned by architect Crichton Lang), roping in unsuspecting visitors to help. Painfully slowly, they are levered on and off transport, driven overnight in the rain to the Oban ferry, and escorted by the police across Mull. The work was organised by Renshaw and his team, while Crichton Lang casts an eye on the whole, and the film reflects Lang’s values. At this stage, architect Crichton Lang was a property developer on the management board of the Abbey, but in 1993 he became the director of Iona Abbey Limited, established to run and develop the Abbey on the behalf of the Trustees. The repeated motif of the film is that the cross is going ‘home’, to where ‘its dignity will be returned’. Despite all the troubles along the way, there is a sense of help from external forces: ‘we’re being helped, no question of that at all’. As the commentator reports, ‘[a]s it passed by its own replica, there was a real sense of homecoming, a sense that the power of the Celtic cross had returned to its rightful home’. All this effort and haste was to see the cross, ‘a unique heritage’, ‘magnificent in its native soil’, re-erected after 33 years, and back in time for its official opening/rededication (Fig. 80). The video is also a celebration of the craftspeople involved, and of the application of old and new technologies. The effort is portrayed as worth it, for the love of Iona and what it stands for.

Place in the world Landscape, materiality and biography are three key ways in which scholars now often seek to frame their understanding of carved stones (Williams et al. 2015; Foster et al. 2016). In the case of the St John’s Cross, the most recent research has highlighted the value of such approaches and means that there is a resurgence in recognition of its significance. However, while developments can be framed in this way, the St John’s Cross has rarely been the initial or prime focus of interest. Momentum for some of the recent work, including our own project, came from Historic Scotland’s Research Seminar in 2012, organised by Peter Yeoman, Head of Cultural Heritage (Fig. 81). New interpretation of the whole monastic complex, and a radical overhaul of the Abbey Museum, was to be implemented in super-quick time for the 1450th anniversary of St Columba’s arrival on Iona in 2013. The Museum’s centre-piece would be three of the high crosses, first and foremost the 1990 reconstruction of the St John’s Cross, around which the

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Figure 81 Group photograph of delegates to the 2012 Historic Scotland Iona Research Seminar.

rest of the museum would need to be worked. This is not the place to review the new museum (see Hall 2013), but the aim was that it should embrace current scholarship and ideas (Forsyth & Maldonado 2012). As alluded to in Chapter 2, Historic Environment Scotland’s main interpretative interest at the Abbey is Columban Iona, little of which is visible in situ, and most of which is poorly understood from an archaeological perspective. It is therefore extremely important that new understandings of the early medieval landscape have

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From out of the shadows ? 151 Figure 82 The approach to Iona Abbey along its early medieval paved road.

Figure 83 Stone types were chosen for their material qualities, such as this wonderfully shimmery garnetmica-schist made into a cross-slab for Iona.

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emerged. These stem from the work of art historians, theologians, architectural historians and most recently archaeologists; the latter have assessed and published Charles Thomas’ unpublished excavations of 1956 to 1963 (notably O’Loughlin 1997; 2010; Hawkes 2005; Ó Carragáin 2010; Campbell & Maldonado 2020 forthcoming). The key findings of these scholars are encapsulated in Chapter 4’s ‘Salvation, wounds and resurrection’. What stands out is the coalescence of evidence for the mid-eighth-century development of Iona as a physical and spiritual metaphor for an earthly and heavenly Jerusalem. Through Adomnán and his immediate successors, Iona led the Irish world in modelling itself on Jerusalem. Its monks invented new monument types as they transformed international ideas in local practice: the ringed high cross and stone shrine-chapel. The new archaeological dimension is extremely important because it extends the scale and nature of the Ionan Jerusalem enterprise. This includes the recognition of the early medieval date of the paved road leading through the vallum entrance to Columba’s burial place (Fig. 82), and the possibility that the massive d-shaped bank and ditch surrounding the monastery could also date from the eighth century rather than earlier. The St John’s Cross and shrine-chapel is now seen as a key focus of this sanctified and evolved landscape, at what was a centre of the early medieval world (see Fig. 40). Again, in Chapter 4, we saw how art-historical approaches that consider not simply the iconography but also the materiality and experience of the carved stones are offering new ways of giving meaning to the crosses (Fig. 83). At their simplest, such approaches invite us to recognise the significance of what may be

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staring us in the face and what we may be feeling. Surprisingly, although much loved and photographed, recognition of the intentionality of how the St John’s Cross (replica) casts its shadow on the (recreated) St Columba’s Shrine only made its way into the academic literature in the last couple of years (Gefreh 2015; 2017, 76), but engineer John Scott captured it in a photograph before the scaffolding was down off the replica. However, as a result of the 2012 Research Seminar, this observation was picked up for the on-site interpretation. We will not presume to anticipate how our biographical approach, this book, will lead to a resurgence in the significance of the St John’s Cross. By way of an example, we will, though, acknowledge the difference that 3d scanning can make to such understandings. The rcahms pioneered new ways of recording carved stones in the 1970s and the St John’s Cross was at the forefront of this (see above and Fisher 2001, 8; Scott 1996). The current trend is for laser scanning, outputs which bodies such as the Discovery Programme or Glasgow School of Art make accessible and hence popularise, through sharing their results on Sketchfab. From a research perspective, the question is how to interpret what these records tell us about the biography of their subjects. Drawings by illustrators have already involved someone’s thinking and hence interpretation. Scanners may not be as subjective as an illustrator (although someone mediates the nature of the scan), but they do not do any interpretation; users of scans need to make sense of what they can tell us. The Discovery Programme’s scan of the St John’s Cross original highlights this potential (see above). The rcahms did not draw and interpret the undecorated or broken surfaces of any of the high crosses, except tenons and basal structures. Wonderful as they are, the rcahms drawings therefore do not give any sense of how much of the body of the cross survived and the nature of its break-up, although their published photo montages give some sense of this for the decorated faces. The sides, with their tell-tale stories of the later reconstructions (Fig. 84), were also not drawn, although in their fragmentary form they were photographed for the public record (see Chapter 4). The scans allow us to explore and recognise some of the evidence for this.

The Iona brand The biographical moments explored in this chapter are the outcome of analysis and review of the published work of scholars working on Iona, light shed on the processes these involved, and insights into the conservation and presentation of the cross. The latter has been gleaned from recent archival sources, and discussion with some of those involved. This is undoubtedly a period that will repay future, more detailed, research as institutional and personal archives become publicly accessible. While this book centres on the modern replica, how many visitors to Iona leave with any real sense of the aesthetic, historic and scientific significance of the eighth-century replica of the True Cross that is the original St John’s Cross, and the journey to this understanding? We think very few, and that is perhaps a surprising conclusion to draw. It is less surprising when you realise that there has

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Figure 84 The Discovery Programme’s scan of the south side of St John’s Cross, to show its fractures, the present-day supporting structure, and the scars of previous repairs.

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not been a guidebook or popular publication in recent times that tells the story of Iona’s carved stones and that gives the visitor the ability to better understand the evidence for themselves. The Museum is also not, for good practical reasons, a part of the tour that Historic Environment Scotland stewards provide for visitors. If the present-day significance of the cross as elicited from traditional forms of research is underplayed, other values are expressed. This is hinted at in the way the cross is used in Iona’s branding. As regular visitor Robin told us, ‘it’s the sort of logo of Brand Iona … it’s just see that cross, oh yeah, that’s Iona’. Our research did not systematically focus on branding, but it is impossible to escape the repeated presence of the cross, and that of St Martin’s Cross. Its location in front of the west end of the reconstructed medieval Abbey has a lot to do with why St John’s Cross appears in so many iconic images, whether it is guidebook covers, postcards or business cards. According to one Iona resident in 2001, ‘visitors just snap a picture of the St John’s Cross before getting the next ferry home’ (Adair 2001). ‘Competing’ with St Martin’s Cross, this replica’s image is also to be found widely in jewellery shops, as table ornaments, on tea-towels and mugs, and decorating ecclesiastical vestments. The production, sale and circulation of such reproductions of the cross(es) can be understood as symbolising Iona. While Ritchie’s jewellery is based on the 1927 Macalister reconstruction of the original, most of the current branding in fact uses the concrete replica, whether it acknowledges that fact or not: the replica is St John’s. This begs the question of what contemporary authenticity and value attach to the 1970 concrete replica, which is the focus of the next chapter.

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7 Glorious revelation Contemporary significance, values and authenticity ‘Heaven in ordinarie’ … It’s a base material, it’s a beautiful object. On one level it’s a replica, and on another level it’s totally the real deal. On one level it speaks less powerfully because it’s not the original stone, hand carved with medieval tools, but on another level, it’s an expression of another kind of workmanship, and of a transmutation of that eternal truth, from the ninth century through to the twentieth century. Gertrude, a recent Iona resident

The subject of Gertrude’s ruminations is of course the 1970 concrete replica (Fig. 85). As we have already seen, the replica stands in a tangled set of material relationships, not only with the original reconstructed fragments, but also the other stone crosses and their many and varied-scale replicas, ranging from superbly crafted antique and contemporary jewellery, to mass-produced items, such as fridge magnets. These in turn are disparately related to the historic landscapes and reconstructed Abbey, and the traditions of ‘workmanship’ associated with the Iona Community. Gertrude’s musings take in the breadth of these associations, bringing together questions of materiality, beauty, craft, temporality and truthfulness. Above all, she is grappling with the complexity, subtlety and elusiveness of authenticity – all prompted by a concrete replica. This chapter draws on our ethnographic research surrounding the St John’s Cross replica to shed light on its wider material and social relationships in contemporary Iona. In doing so we also reveal how replicas of historical objects

Figure 85 Detail of the head of the St John’s Cross replica.

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and monuments ‘work’ in heritage contexts, picking up on the questions posed in Chapter 1, in particular as regards the experience of authenticity. This can only be understood with reference to the complexity of the island’s multiple communities, the nature of theirs and others’ gazes, and how this relates to different places on the island (Chapters 2 and 3). Our fieldwork provides a rich and nuanced picture of people’s responses to the St John’s Cross replica, and how its authenticity or otherwise is produced and negotiated through a complex web of relations, qualities and associations. The research challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about how historic replicas work and we make a case for a radical transformation in how we theorise them. Chapter 8 addresses the practical implications of our findings. Our four themes are: the social and material networks in which the replica is embedded; place and displacement; materiality and ‘pastness’; and craft, creativity and biography.

‘Loaded objects’: meanings and relationships According to Isla, an islander, visitors leave the Aosdàna jewellery shop with their modern replicas of Iona Celtic Art (Fig. 86): feeling they’ve purchased part of the cultural heritage of Iona … the objects acquire a significance that is related to their cultural provenance, but also to the personal experience that the customer had when they were on Iona. So they’re loaded objects.

As we will see, the ways in which these objects become embedded in meanings and relationships, relating to experience and place, can also be said to apply to the many and varied crosses on the island, including the St John’s Cross replica. This is not immediately evident in conversation with the islanders, many of whom adopt a studied indifference towards the crosses, in part by association with the Abbey and its tenants (Chapter 2). Yet, this belies subtler meanings

Figure 86 In the Aosdàna shop on Iona visitors linger when looking for replica and modern jewellery to take home that will evoke Iona’s special qualities.

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and relationships. Former resident and frequent visitor, Doris, points out that there is something about how receptive you are to looking, which affects the visibility of the crosses, and this depends on your circumstances. She visited for 20 years, mostly in a ‘work’ capacity, before she stopped, looked and really noticed the crosses. Similarly, Isla observes that ‘they’re wallpaper, in terms of your day-to-day life. You just, well you’re walking past them’ (Fig. 87). Yet this is not a consequence of disinterest. Indeed, there are strong undercurrents of association and attachment to both the Abbey and the crosses among the island

Figure 87 A pupil’s perspective of the crosses on Iona.

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community. Margaret explains that: ‘People you would think never went near the Abbey are actually obviously quite involved with it and there is this feeling that it’s our Abbey, which you don’t always feel when talking to people’. For some islanders, the crosses, including the replica, are also charged with meaning and agency: Molly spoke about how ‘they stood the test of time and they’ve witnessed so much’, while they offer Margaret a ‘comforting permanence’. Moreover, Peter is adamant that it ‘would cause absolute civil war, if the crosses … were going to be taken off the island’. Not surprisingly, spiritual meanings and relationships also loom large in respect to the crosses, particularly for the Iona Community and its guests, although by no means exclusively. For Gertrude, a practising Christian who moved to Iona not so long ago, both the St John’s Cross replica and St Martin’s Cross are ‘brought alive by … pilgrim/community experience’, when used as props in active religious observance, such as the annual Stations of the Cross procession. Since George MacLeod’s day, St Martin’s has been the starting point of the Iona Community weekly pilgrimage. Inhabited with fantastic biblical vignettes and other designs, stories with a contemporary resonance are spun around it. Its very name prompts talk of the eponymous saint’s pacifism, an important symbolic element for the Iona Community and its objectives. The role of the crosses as mediums for telling religious stories in the past is lauded by Iona Community members, reworked for contemporary messages about the syncretism of pagan and Christian beliefs, and popular notions of Celtic Christianity. These stories have become the signature of the monuments for many associated with the Iona Community, to which can be added St John’s Cross’ role as the progenitor of Celtic ringed crosses. The crosses are also described as an aid to meditation and contemplation, sources of energy, the subject of veneration, reminders of faith, and markers of holy ground. Moreover, the replica is no less significant than the original in this regard. ‘Every cross is a replica, isn’t it?’ said Dora, an American Iona Community visitor, while a quick-witted Dutch passerby, seeing us creating a 3d digital model of the St John’s Cross replica, wryly observed, ‘so it’s a copy of a copy of a copy’. Consciously or otherwise, all the crosses, including the replica, therefore have a spiritual agency, and, as Gordon noted, this is inextricably linked to their roots within the landscape (see below): You’re moving through a landscape, both historical and spiritual, you know. And one of the prayers of the Iona Community was that, you know if Christ’s disciples keep silent, these stones would shout aloud. And they do.

Demonstrative expressions of belief in front of the crosses are almost non-existent (Fig. 88). While this is not surprising for the Iona Community, which although ecumenical is a Protestant organisation founded in the presbyterian Church of Scotland, or indeed other Protestant denominations, there are Catholic visitors and many international visitors, some of whom will be of Catholic faith/background.

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Figure 88 An Italian tourist kneels at St Martin’s Cross immediately after having seen Foster demonstrate to another visitor how the small ledge at the foot of the stepped base was designed for kneeling.

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Yet, Marthinus, an Afrikaans member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and his companions, were the only people we observed spontaneously genuflecting and making the sign of the cross in front of any of the monuments. Furthermore, excepting St Martin’s, the crosses are rarely the focus of active worship, pilgrimage or other Iona Community activities. Being a Christian cross, replica or not, can also constrain some people’s willingness to engage in the first place, including non-believers, Protestants for whom the cross is associated with Catholicism, and those for whom the cross simply represents suffering. Beyond the spiritual, what possibilities are there for people to connect with the biography of the replica? We quickly realised that apart from the interviewees involved in its creation nearly 50 years ago, no-one, including any of the heritage professionals, really knew anything about the replica’s creation and subsequent history. When they thought they did, they were often confusing its life story with return of the original St John’s Cross to Iona in 1990. Part of the same ‘composite biography’, the lives and fortunes of the original and the replica are inextricably entwined, grounded in the meaningful return of something ‘lost’ to the island. Some people vaguely remembered that the replica had won a concrete award, but only the son of one of the engineers involved in its creation knew the full details, carefully curated in a family archive dedicated to the replica. None of the on-site interpretation reveals any aspect of the replica’s story: it is a proxy for the brilliant, cutting-edge original, ‘now go see the original in the museum’, the display plaque suggests. The lapse of time and the lack of agency of the local community (Chapter 5) explains why biographies linking the originals and replicas on Iona are less enmeshed than those revealed in Jones’ ethnographic work at Hilton of Cadboll. Put simply, the social and material relations involved in the production of the Iona examples were spatially removed from Iona and happened longer ago. The Hilton of Cadboll replica was recognised by locals to be ‘born’ or ‘grown’ in their community, because that was where it was carved, over several years (Jones 2006). They came to know Barry Grove, its sculptor, and could pop in to visit him while working. Indeed, in the absence of other arenas for social interaction on the village of Hilton, the shed that was used as a makeshift studio became a focal point. Despite Russell’s role and his residence on Iona, the creation of the St John’s Cross replica did not directly involve islanders in the same way, not least because it was made on the mainland. This difference inevitably has a legacy in terms of how islanders ‘own’ the St John’s Cross replica or feel it (and indeed the Abbey) ‘belongs’ to them. Second, the Iona and Hilton replicas were created a good generation apart (1970 and 1998–2005), which makes a difference in terms of individual, institutional and social memories.

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The replica is therefore one of an assemblage of crosses that inhabit an island landscape imbued with both spiritual meanings and more secular forms of attachment and belonging. The crosses have an agency and become especially meaningful to people when activated by use, not least in storytelling. The replica has no less significance than the original, but ways of engaging and connecting with its biography (and developing a relationship) are effectively shut down by lack of information and the way it is treated as a proxy for the original in terms of heritage management and interpretation. Our research shows that the replica might be said to have its own life, albeit constrained and to some extent dependent on the original. Yet the original was moved into the Abbey Museum, a radically different space in which to experience it. So, what part do place and space play in generating the aura of an in-situ replica?

Place and space It is widely held that aura diminishes if something is ‘dislocated’ from the systems that give it meaning (Cameron 2007, 57; cf. Lowenthal 1985, 287), and that includes place and space (although see Lending 2017, 70–105). At the same time, Latour and Lowe assert that there is ‘a sort of stubborn persistence’ that makes it impossible to separate the association of a place with an original and its aura (Latour & Lowe 2011, 282). Accordingly, they suggest, aura can migrate to (high quality) replicas located in original historic contexts. What does this mean in practice and how might our qualitative research shed light on these processes? There is a wide acceptance that the original St John’s Cross needs to be displayed in the Abbey museum because it is too fragile to be conserved outside. The outcome though is a form of dislocation, evident in the commonly held perception that the monumental crosses sheltering in the museum have changed function and become art. For visiting American, Arnie, ‘it’s art not in context’. The idea that they are ‘fragile’ is also reinforced. They become about ‘formation and edification’ rather than ‘worship and faith, and religion and spirituality’ noted Molly. Outside, in contrast, the crosses are seen by many as integral to the island’s fabric and, in the words of frequent visitor Dorothy, examples of where ‘the spiritual erupts from the earth’. The monumental replica takes on some of these qualities because of the way in which it stands for the original, indeed in some senses is the St John’s Cross. As Stella, a heritage professional points out, ‘if you said to the Monument Manager, I’ll meet you at St John’s in ten minutes, you wouldn’t find her in the museum, you’d find her outside the Shrine [next to the replica]’. Moreover, the place and space that the replica is located in expand the nature of, and opportunities for, social relations. Where experiences are embodied, stories can be elaborated and become embedded. This most obviously relates to the interlinked ways in which aura and emotion are generated, because the replica stands where people intended the original to be. On tours, visitors are told that St Martin’s is ‘the oldest cross still in situ’ (our emphasis) and reminded of its constant presence, whereas the St John’s Cross replica is often ignored in these narratives.

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Nonetheless, our interviewees attached a lot of significance to both St Martin’s and St John’s Cross replica being in situ, and effectively functioning as a team. Intrinsically, the location matters and a primacy is afforded to that original (i.e. first) location. It ‘returns’ something lost and retains a sense of the intended place. The ability to relate to what people did in the past is also seen as important. Being outside, the replica evokes the tradition of outdoors worship. It also contributes to an ability to reimagine the topography of the Columban monastery, and its symbolism, through the location of its crosses, Shrine, vallum and the rocky prominence of Tòrr an Aba, where St Columba had his writing cell. Although largely unrealised for most people we interviewed, this is a prominent aspect of the Historic Environment Scotland audio-tour and, as recent scholarship shows (Chapter 4), the relationship of these monuments is critical to appreciating the highly intellectual mindset that informed the layout of the early monastery. The St John’s Cross replica also contributes to an embodied experience of religious or secular pilgrimage along a well-trodden evocative path ending at St Columba’s Shrine. Although it feels and generally is overlooked, the empty socket of St Matthew’s Cross is particularly evocative to some because it gives the imagination free rein (cf. Maddrell & Scriven 2016, 313). Some did though say they would like to see a replica here too (Fig. 89). Outside there is also a palpable pleasure that comes from what feels like an individual experience, the special privilege of the island residents who can visit out of season, or visitors who can wander around and encounter the replica after hours, once the Historic Environment Scotland staff have left, the Abbey gates are left open, and the last ferry is away for the day. For some the experience is rendered more profound by the evening shadow of the replica cast on St Columba’s Figure 89 St Martin’s and St Matthew’s Crosses, and the St John’s Cross replica, from the roof of the Abbey, with natural outcrop Tòrr an Aba behind. The surviving lower shaft of St Matthew’s was removed in 1992 for conservation reasons.

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Figure 90 The midsummer shadow of the St John’s Cross replica on St Columba’s Shrine. ‘And that moment when the shadow goes across the door, it feels so intended’, heritage practitioner and regular visitor Stella told us.

Shrine. Tracy, an American holidaying on Iona sums this up in her description of the replica as ‘beloved of the shadow – it moves the people who come here’ (Fig. 90). The shadow is now thought to be a deliberate design feature of the eighthcentury craftsmen (Chapter 4), a feat unintentionally recreated when the replica was erected in 1970 against the backdrop of the Shrine that, until its recreation in 1954/55, survived as no more than low wall footings (see Fig. 52). Regardless of its twentieth-century concrete fabric, the experience has a timeless quality, which the original in the museum no longer conveys in the same way. As Dora reminds us, ‘emotion springs up unbidden, and the museum doesn’t do that for me’. Weather is also important, as Katie Mills (2019) demonstrates in her ethnographic research on this most capricious, unavoidable and all-enveloping aspect of outdoor heritage encounters. Weather impacts on the experience of a given space, place and landscape, alters fabric and affects personal emotions, senses of authenticity and materiality. This particularly applies to Iona. Open to the weather and skies, the monuments evoke ‘something higher’, explains Andrew, a heritage professional.

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There is a metaphorical and physical ‘surrender’ to nature’s rhythms, and the aging that contributes to the idea that outside the monuments, including the replica, have lives. This is reflected in how Marthinus compares the ‘misplaced cognitive experience’ in the museum to the ‘whole-person experience’ of seeing the replica in situ. The recreated Benedictine buildings and reconstructed Shrine forms a theatrical backdrop. The place hardly resembles an eighth-century monastery, but this is a real experience nonetheless. It matters that the spirit of the place, its genius loci, is in some way recognisable. We feel this though an embodied experience of encounter and exploration. The way that modern interventions might impact on setting and detract from the appreciation of a carved stone was described to us by visitor David. He compared Iona to Brandsbutt in Aberdeenshire, where the Picts carved very bold designs on one of the stones in a prehistoric stone circle. Now enveloped by a modern housing estate, these are for David ‘the saddest stones I have ever seen’. On Iona some visitors are uncomfortable with the lack of ruins. Heidi, a visiting American academic, was one of several people effectively ‘looking for the ruins within the reconstruction’. More frequently, however, locals and visitors talk in a positive way about renewal, resuscitation, rebuilding, reimagining, recreating. The renewal of the Abbey is a metaphor for the work of the Iona Community: as islander Margaret put it, ‘something would die in that building if the Iona Community give up.’ Given the visual power of the replica outside, it is hardly surprising that Historic Environment Scotland’s 2013 redisplay of the St John’s Cross and its fellows employs son et lumière to stimulate the senses and heighten the emotions of visitors: to re-invigorate it as a monument, albeit evoking past rather than present times. It achieves this impressively, in a small, single-cell, chapel-like building, with rotating diurnal light (but no shadow) and associated sound effects evoking the Gaelic, Columban-period monastery in three and a quarter-minute rounds (see Fig. 19). As Isla summed up, the St John’s Cross in the museum is like a ‘powerful ghost or spectre’, a ‘tangible presence, and … it’s trying to create the intangible presence roundabout it’. Accordingly, for some, the overall experience in the museum is more moving than the outside replica experience, with an immediacy that invites (forbidden) touch. The original and the replica thus mutually reinforce each other’s significance, while simultaneously invoking complex relationships to place and different forms of aura and authenticity. Although at a spiritual level Gertrude might argue that the replica is ‘sacrosanct to God and not the location’, the replica acquires aura and authenticity because it replaces something important that is lost and illuminates the personality of the original with its shadow-casting. The experience of authenticity is not just bound up with the immediate space the replica occupies, but also the desires, expectations and realities of experiencing the Abbey and Iona more widely. Locale and atmosphere (Lowenthal 1985, 240–1) are germane, but these are bound up in social networks as well as aesthetics. What then happens as people encounter the replica close up, and experience its materiality?

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164 My life as a replica

Material evidence of ‘pastness’ A long-standing body of writing and research (e.g. Ruskin 1865; Lowenthal 1985; Holtorf 2013; Douglas-Jones et al. 2016) points to the importance of material transformation, ruination and decay in the production of ‘age-value’ (Riegl 1982 [1902]) and the experience of authenticity. In keeping with this material aesthetic, we found our interviewees generally like things to feel unaltered, and unmediated. It is for this reason that many of them expressed a fondness for the unreconstructed [but conserved] Iona Nunnery, and the importance of being able to read the ruins within a building, or somewhere that their imagination can reign. They also pointed to the importance of patina derived from weathering, decay and the growth of lichen and related growths (see Figs 85 & 97). This creates ambivalence towards the engineered, prestressed concrete that makes up the fabric of the St John’s Cross replica. For John Lawrie the artist who cast it, weathering well means that the surface is not decaying, whereas nearly everyone else needs the replica to be ageing gracefully, showing visible signs of its lifespan. Poring over the surface, local resident Emma was delighted to find lichen, while others were pleased that the seam (a deliberate design feature, to make it clear it is a replica) is looking less obvious. Regular visitor Roderick has known the replica all its life, and for him, ‘with the growth on it, the lichen and so on, I think it looks very authentic, very original almost’. It seemed to us that it was often a badge of honour to be able to recognise that the cross is a replica, but many of our interviewees did not know it was a copy, or what it was made of (indeed, this did not necessarily matter). The replica was described by some as ‘too crisp’, although in fact its profile is based on plaster casts made from the worn original, and its makers were at pains to address ‘pastness’, with their efforts to match both the colour and geological fabric of the original in its aggregate (see Chapter 5). Lawrie hand-finished the exposed aggregate to enhance its ‘worn’ qualities (see 5), a modern attribute that heritage professional, Andrew, attributed to age. But while concrete may gain some growths, it does not erode like stone. For some it can still look ‘too new’, while for others the replica’s apparent crispness is a virtue; as Ruben observed, there is ‘information trapped in there, there’s knowledge preserved’. When people recognised or knew the cross to be concrete, this could evoke a chain of reactions as they actively negotiated its implications. Those involved in its manufacture admire good concrete and its artistic potential, knowing how it combines scientific technology and craft skills (cf. Forty 2012, 15), but for many it has negative connotations, at least in heritage contexts. Fundamentally, it is regarded as a new, industrial-age material that involves no skills and little or no craftsmanship. Accordingly, it invokes negative responses, not least in conservation circles where, as Ruben notes, ‘over decades of my work life, [I’ve had it drilled into me] that there’s something not quite right and kosher about concrete’. There is therefore something about knowing the replica is concrete that has a negative impact, arguably more so than it being a replica. This is because of what

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Forty summarises as concrete’s multiple and seemingly contradictory characteristics and associations: ‘liquid/solid, smooth/rough, natural/artificial, ancient/modern, base/spirit’ (Forty 2012, 10–11). Concrete is visibly not an anachronism, one of the three processes that Lowenthal argues help people to recognise things as being of the past (Lowenthal 1985, 241). Nonetheless, touch, and occasionally smell and taste, emerged as important ways that people sought to connect with the subject of their interest, whether replica or historic fabric. Former resident Doris told us how ‘I touch things and smell them, and sometimes I taste them because I’m a tactile person. Because I’m very conscious of the geology of this part of the world’. Commonly, the reason cited for touching is to make a connection between the past and present, with its ineffable rewards. ‘I feel I can touch and feel the history and it sends a shiver down my spine, it really does’, said Annie, a steward at the Abbey. For Gertrude, ‘coming into relationship is signified by the act of just reaching out and patting something’, while Tracey explained that in touching something you can turn around and look either way, into the past and future. The patent modernity of the replica again places it in an ambiguous position with the result that for some it does not merit the reverence connoted by touch, or for others it requires active and conscious labour to bring it into this relation. Thus, Robin ran his fingers over the replica during his interview observing that, ‘I don’t think I would have wanted to touch it when it was new because it would have been a new object, no historical connections or anything’. Having age-value and ‘pastness’ is bound up with the sense that the object has had a life and has experienced things. It is the connection with these experiences that renders them special. Despite the efforts of its makers and the gradual development of patina, cultural conceptions of concrete disrupt the aura of something that is otherwise widely recognised as being aesthetically pleasing, if not beautiful. Its materiality also impedes people’s understanding of the potential craft and skills behind the replica’s creation.

‘Glorious revelation’ Towards the end of our interviews, we brought out photographs of the engineers and craftsmen involved in the production of the replica and invited reflections on these, seeking to understand how they might contribute to the value and authenticity of the replica (Fig. 91). Some of our interviewees were not particularly convinced that the photographs changed their views, the most extreme perhaps being heritage professional Mark, for whom ‘all replicas are ultimately fakes’. However, a greater nuance did usually reveal itself, despite people’s initial reactions. The images shed light on the replica’s early biography and the people involved in its creation, as Isla highlights: I think the replica tells a contemporary human story of commitment and endeavour, connected to the cross, and connected to the wider importance of the cross, and the wider religion on Iona. So I think it’s a, it’s a continuity of care, it’s a continuity of belief,

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whether that’s a religious belief, or a belief in the job you’re doing as a craftsperson, or a belief in the job you’re doing as an engineer. I think, for me, it’s the human story.

A sense emerged that the replica involved high levels of investment, being handmade by skilled and connected craftsmen who took great pride in their work. If it mattered to them, it should matter to the wider community. Links were also created to the craftsmen who rebuilt the Abbey. As she dried up the coffee cups after watching our showing of Murdo MacKenzie’s cine film at the Village Hall, one of the island’s residents told Foster she would now be upset if the replica was damaged, mentioning in her next breath how she had ‘connected’, as in made an emotional link, with one of its makers in the photographs. As Chapter 5 reveals, the replica project was largely undertaken by Iona lovers rather than the permanent residents or the Iona Community, and Tom and Molly respectively recognised it as a ‘passion thing’ and ‘passion project’. As part of our school workshop, we introduced the children to the composite biography of the St John’s Cross using excerpts of Murdo MacKenzie’s cine film and other archival materials (see Fig. 10). This included postcards of the Abbey from the late nineteenth-century onwards, scoured from junk shops, antique markets and ebay. These were used to develop a timeline based on the evolving state of the cross and Cathedral ruins/rebuild. The children responded in different ways,

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Figure 91 Left to right Engineer John R. Scott, conservator Tam Day, foreman plasterer Jackie Drysdale and artist John Lawrie stand in front of the replica in Edinburgh on the day it was first assembled.

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Figure 92 Artwork about the replica’s story produced by a young islander.

Figure 93 ‘I love Iona’: artwork about the replica produced by a young islander.

often making clear distinctions between replica and original (and even in one case the 3d digital model: Fig. 92). Nevertheless, the majority were captivated by the story of the replica as revealed by the images and cine film. In their artwork and discussions, they made meaningful links with people and places familiar to them (Fig. 93). They particularly liked the replica arriving with the puffer into Martyr’s Bay, lying on top of the island’s annual delivery of coal, a well-kent but deceased personality Doodie MacFayden transporting it in his tractor to the Abbey, the

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saga of the concrete mixer breaking down, the scaffolding used to erect it, and the dash to get the replica erected before Doodie’s wedding at the end of the week (where some recognised among the guests their grandparents as young people). For the poetic and deeply spiritual Gertrude, the photographs became a ‘glorious revelation’. In common with a notable number of other interviewees, the dedication and skills of honest craftsmen, that she described as ‘God’s workmanship … God’s masterpieces’, were also imbued with sanctity, something that should be acknowledged as an act of worship. Accordingly, a direct link was often implied between these craftsmen and the monks who made the original cross. For Gertrude the replica also acquired metaphorical interest as she drew on George Herbert’s phrase ‘heaven in ordinarie’ (p. 155). Staying at the Findhorn Foundation retreat on Iona, belonging to an organisation focusing on the ‘intelligence of nature’, Donna also expressed a sense of revelation. Concerned about what she feels is a lack of ‘energy’ in concrete, the photographs evoked what she called the ‘alchemy of manufacture’, brought about by ‘intelligent and astute gentlemen’. The images thus provided our interviewees with the necessary personal hooks into the replica’s biography. They also generated a form of enchantment associated with the transubstantiation of materials and the potency of coming into existence (cf. Gell 1992). As Molly put it, ‘information is formational’. Interviewees gained insights that invited them to think differently about their responses to the materiality of the cross. This highlights again the paradoxes associated with established thinking surrounding replicas in heritage contexts. While their status as copies is expected to be documented, the people and materials involved in their production are often hidden, and their form and appearance is such that they do not mark themselves out in any obvious way from their historic originals. In contrast, by revealing the human investment, craft and materiality involved in the production of the St John’s Cross replica – showing what Gertrude called its ‘displaced workmanship’ – quite literally exposed its heart, and in doing so it could be said to have acquired some soul. The 1970 replica will have an ongoing life as part of the composite biography of the St John’s Cross, and we recognise that this book will play a key role in mediating and extending biographies, whether of the original, the replica, or even other copies. As acknowledged above, as researchers and now authors we are agents in new thinking about the St John’s Cross. This is because we have talked to people about it, shared primary sources and widely communicated our research findings. A local tour guide told us she already tells different stories to her guests, and in May 2019 we formally asked Historic Environment Scotland to review the designation of Iona Abbey to include the replica. We have unavoidably written ourselves into what we hope will, with the benefit of hindsight, be recognised as a future biographical moment: the resurgence of the St John’s Cross and its replica. The St John’s Cross is in so many ways a metaphor for renewal of the Abbey and island given its capacity for so many meanings, for believers of different denominations, and for non-believers, but it also merits greater recognition for itself. Beyond Iona, it should also be a beacon for new ways of thinking about replicas. These wider heritage implications of our findings will be the subject of the next and final chapter.

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Celebration in concrete Celebration of concrete

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Figure 94 Summary of the heritage cycle (after Thurley 2005).

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8 New life, new thinking I’m engaging both from an aesthetic perspective and that awareness of wow … to let … the fact that it’s a replica detract from my appreciation of it to me seems nitpicky. Molly, working at the Abbey

We argue that replicas have untold heritage value, that their authenticity and significance derive from multiple values, and that it is important to consider the broader heritage policy and practice implications of such qualitative research for heritage management (cf. pp. 11, 16). Inviting new thinking about replicas has repercussions, changing understandings of value and authenticity in global contexts, with a bearing on, for example, the 2000 Riga Charter on Authenticity and Historical Reconstruction in Relation to Cultural Heritage (Stovel 2001). This chapter begins by summarising why the authenticity and value of replicas needs rethinking. It then reviews the practical heritage implications of our ethnographic findings from Chapter 7 with reference to stages in the heritage cycle. In a post-Burra Charter world (1979–) this offers a recognisable framework for considering different aspects of heritage management and their inter-relationships, as well as their policy context. In this highly influential model, the starting point is to understand a subject and determine its cultural significance, embracing aesthetic, historic, scientific, social or spiritual values for past, present or future generations, where significance is the sum of these values (Australia icomos 1979 revised 2013). The heritage cycle (Fig. 94) describes a process born out of such a values-based conservation approach: an understanding of value (iteratively fed and shaped by creating knowledge and understanding of something) is used to inform decisions about what to secure for the future, and how such resources can be engaged for wider public benefit, generating a desire to know more about our heritage (Thurley 2005). The challenge is how to ensure that all relevant values are recognised and factored into such processes. Traditionally, the organisations who have the means and authority to make decisions have focused on, and have an expertise in, certain types of scholarly and professional values. These often mirror the disciplinary background of university graduates and are developed by institutional discourses (Smith 2006). Today, decision-makers need to find ways to also acknowledge, research, respect and juggle the social values of other relevant communities of interest, which is far from straightforward (Jones & Leech 2015; Jones 2016b). Our focus is on the social, spiritual and other values that ethnography is suited to illuminating, while simultaneously attentive to how these intangible dimensions intersect with tangible aspects of the St John’s Cross replica and its original, fragmented counterpart. Importantly, it suggests that replicas can be a medium for the active negotiation and generation of values, practices and forms of social memory, and that these intangible dimensions need to be foregrounded,

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172 My life as a replica

alongside the tangible, in the conservation process. Along the way, we will also reflect on the implications of our linked exercise of constructing a cultural biography for over 1200 years of the St John’s Cross/replica (Chapters 4 to 7).

Rethinking authenticity and value There is no sense in which I need to see the real thing for the experience to be authentic – it’s the symbolism, the narrative, the interpretation of the thing that’s important rather than the thing itself. Gordon

Every replica will find itself in unique circumstances, and Iona is of course unusual in many ways for reasons we have explored. The St John’s Cross replica is situated in a complex web of meaningful contemporary and historic relationships, a world that we gained an insight into through ethnography, alongside complementary interdisciplinary research to establish a cultural biography (Chapters 4–6). But its treatment is perhaps typical of Western heritage management practices. Of the features at the (recreated) Abbey that it is technically possible to designate as scheduled monuments or listed buildings, only the St John’s Cross replica has been excluded (see below). There is the whiff of traditional heritage discourse about what is of value and deemed significant, emanating from modernist attitudes that place replicas in secondary positions and locate authenticity ultimately in the fabric of historic originals. Traditional ideas about replicas and materials such as concrete are a live issue in the case of the St John’s Cross replica, particularly for some cognoscenti, whether islanders, visitors or heritage professionals (cf. Lowenthal 1985, 295). For Lowenthal, a replica is made authentic by hard work (so it closely mimics the original) (Lowenthal 1992, 188). Our research suggests that replicas acquire aura and authenticity when they are recognised as things in their own right, socially embedded and inextricably linked to the expectations and experience of their materiality, setting and place. The presence of the St John’s Cross replica permits a contemporary phenomenological experience that evokes symbolism and stories, rather than ‘adding originality’ in the way that Latour and Lowe appear to suggest (Latour & Lowe 2011, 285). The replica’s evening shadow setting on St Columba’s Shrine can still do something ineffable for someone who knows the St John’s Cross is a concrete replica, even if that knowledge in some way impedes their ability to just enjoy it for what it is. To an island child, born 40 years or so after the replica was erected, it’s ‘a real story and people realy did look like this’ (Fig. 95). Such perspectives invite serious reflection. Age is relative, and it was notable how many of our North American interviewees did not consider the ‘youth’ of the 1970 replica to be an issue, since from their perspective it was already fairly old. We therefore call for a new theory of replicas that encompasses the part that networks of relations – between people, objects and places – play in the production and negotiation of authenticity, and the ways these are embodied in the biographies

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Figure 95 A child’s perspective on the replica story as history.

and materialities of things. Our research shows that this applies to replicas as well as historic originals (cf. Jones 2010). They can acquire authenticity and ‘pastness’, linked to materiality, craft practices, creativity and place. Yet, their authenticity is founded on the networks of relationships between people, places and things that they come to embody, as well as their dynamic material qualities. The cultural biographies of replicas, and the ‘felt relationships’ associated with them, play a key role in the generation and negotiation of authenticity, while at the same time informing the authenticity and value of their historic counterparts through the ‘composite biographies’ produced (see Jones et al. 2017 for a discussion of parallel processes with respect to digital, ‘virtual’ replicas).

Heritage implications On the basis of this research, replicas at heritage sites need to be considered as things in their own right, with their own biographies, which stand in complex relationships to other things, their historic counterparts (and in this sense simultaneously share ‘composite biographies’). We have learnt about a host of

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174 My life as a replica

ways in which the replica is the St John’s Cross. Prior to our cultural biographical work published here for the first time, especially Chapter 5, little was widely known about our replica’s biography. It is therefore not surprising that the replica was still readily dismissed given the influential heritage mindset that regards all replicas as fakes (p. 165) and by implication not worth bothering with beyond the instrumental surrogate uses that usually trigger their deployment in heritage contexts. Given the iterative relationship between creating knowledge of something and understanding its values, this means that the values and hence significance of the St John’s Cross replica have not been considered. This has had a knock-on effect in terms of the process of deciding what to formally protect through the legal mechanisms of designation and what stories to present to the public at the site. Our ethnographic study reveals that the intangible heritage associated with the St John’s Cross replica is rich and highly nuanced. Specific qualities of place and setting are shown to be critical to the way in which authenticity of the replica can be experienced. Visible ageing remains a quality highly sought out by people; the use of modern material – concrete – has proved a culturally constructed barrier to appreciation of authenticity for some while a revelation to others. New or alternative senses of authenticity emerge when people are introduced to some of the human story behind the creation of the replica, questioning their own assumptions about the absence of creativity, skills and craftsmanship. As Aoi, visiting Iona for the day told us, ‘“[r]eplica” is the wrong word. As it was done by a person by hand it still has the hand of the maker’. Values and significance expand from the primarily tangible to the intangible. In different ways, the replica starts to acquire an authenticity as people acquire the ability through looking at photographs to connect aspects of the replica’s biography to their own lives, not least their special relationship to Iona and personal spiritual beliefs. The paradox for any replica, as we know, is that if it works well as the proxy it is intended to be in the context of authorised heritage discourse, its own life story is often rendered materially invisible, indeed deliberately so (Cameron 2007, 60, 70). However, this denial of its biography undermines people’s ability to connect to the networks of people, places and objects in which it is embedded, and which in turn inform the experience of authenticity. If it shows any independent evidence of ‘pastness’ then it might indeed acquire the sense it is old and has had a life, imagined or real, but it risks betraying its intended fidelity to its parent when it does so, because it has acquired its own trajectory of physical change. So, what happens if people allow for the possibility that a replica is a thing in its own right, albeit a thing that stands in complex relationship to another thing? We experienced this when we showed our interviewees images relating to the making of the St John’s Cross replica. The insights they gained into the replica’s creativity and craft, as well as the sense of the replica as something with its own life story, allowed interviewees to negotiate emergent forms of aura and authenticity. Thus, replicas can ‘work’ for us if we let them, particularly if clues are available about their makers’ passion, creativity and craft. For the Palmyra arch replica temporarily placed in Trafalgar Square in 2016, Kamash suggested that the

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lack of information for visitors was possibly intended to make encounters with it more magical (Kamash 2017, 615). Our study reveals the magic that happens when you add an evocative picture to the frame, allowing people to connect to a replica’s own unique biography. From out of the concrete pour non-concrete, intangible connections, as the replica acquires a social life and ‘felt relationships’ are generated. The bottom line then is a simple message: factor replicas into assessments of cultural significance and act on this knowledge. There is scope to accommodate this approach within some existing international policy or charters (e.g. The Burra Charter Australia icomos, 1979 revised 2013, §15.4), although the Riga Charter takes a more conservative line on replication. Putting this into practice at any one place will always present further challenges but including replicas in the mix will ensure that the full gamut of tangible and intangible interests is explored and realised. To elaborate on specific practical implications, we will now turn to the aforementioned heritage cycle.

Creating knowledge and understanding As Macdonald points out in relation to The Nara Document on Authenticity, each case needs locally specific knowledge and understanding (Macdonald 2013, 213; icomos 1994, §9), something that was further reinforced in Nara+20, alongside the need for new methodologies (Japan icomos 2014). Since little is known of replicas, research is obviously needed to establish their biographies and reveal their hidden stories, not least of the creativity and skills of the craftspeople behind their production. These have been visible, acknowledged or lauded to differing degrees in different reproductive contexts through time (see here Fyfe 2004 on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century engravers who reproduced works of art and whose creative input was claimed and recognised at the time). An interdisciplinary, composite biographical approach that looks at the web of relationships between originals, replicas, people and places offers a rounded perspective on what happened and a temporal understanding of changing values and meaning. As we have seen in the St John’s Cross study, even well-researched originals have the potential to offer new evidence and understandings, prompted initially by questions about a replica. Themes that emerge when looking at replicas, or using one disciplinary approach, may find resonances in different phases of the lives encapsulated in a composite biography. Sources will vary and may lend themselves to historical ethnography (Macdonald 2013, 52–78), while focused, rapid ethnographic assessment, as practised here, can illuminate contemporary attitudes to authenticity and value (pp. 25–8, 155–6). More commonly practised in America and Australia (Low 2002; Taplin et al. 2002; see also Pink & Morgan 2013), rapid ethnographic assessment offers the means of understanding values that are not bound up in the fabric of the place and are not immediately obvious to the observer. When it comes to objects, the experience of authenticity over time is informed by the relationships – of object, people and place – embodied

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in the cultural biography of the object. The benefit of ethnographic study is that social relationships are illuminated, and place, in all its senses, can be integrated into a biographically informed analysis. After all, being ‘of ’ a place is about more than the place; it is about the way that the object is ‘implicated in social lives in the locality’ (Macdonald 2002, 96–7). Furthermore, there is also scope to explore the relationship between authenticity and the material qualities of ‘old’ things, going beyond a constructivist understanding (cf. Jones 2010, 183; Graves-Brown 2013). Keeping detailed records of the people, places and things associated with replica creation can ensure their ‘human stories’ are accessible in the future. Digital replicas also have authors, and people help to humanize objects (Jeffrey 2018, 51–2). This is not mentioned in the 2017 V&A and Peri reach guidelines on how to reproduce, store and share digital reproductions of cultural heritage and works of art, although its importance is self-evident in the case studies and illustrations in the accompanying publication (Aguerre & Cormier 2018, 26; Cormier 2018). There is important knowledge about evolving (hi)stories of heritage practices to be gained and shared, as well as how communities get involved and engage with replicas. Professional curators should not be shy to recognise and communicate the contribution of their own community (Wolfhechel Jensen 2012), or indeed the context in which others may have created replicas. As our interviewee Marthinus put it, a replica is a ‘window to another reality’. One dimension of that reality is the contemporary perceptions of conservation philosophy and practice embodied in the replica’s materiality (cf. Duval et al. 2019), as well as the agency of nonheritage professionals. These are important stories to research and relate, as Mills’ ethnographic study of the replica of prehistoric rock art at Gardom’s Edge in the Peak District of England also suggests (Mills 2019, 139–47). While professionals can ensure and/or encourage the availability of good records for the future, the availability of sources about existing replicas, particularly older ones, will inevitably be more of a lottery and require much ferreting to identify, retrieve and set in a wider historical context. Neither the creation of the recently carved Hilton of Cadboll stone nor St John’s Cross replica were government enterprises. Fortunately, as we have seen for the St John’s Cross, many of those involved with its production were exceptionally proud of their role and curated records (Fig. 96). Some of these are still held privately, while others have been transferred to public records. These archives are essential for those who need to learn how the highly engineered and technically complex replica was put together, but they also provide important information about the relationship between people and places. It was notable to us that past government photographic records have tended to omit the people doing the work, or at work, and that is a shame. We need visual records with and without people. Foster’s archival research led to meeting Murdo MacKenzie and discovering his cine film of the replica enterprise in its 1970s island context, including the coal delivery, a wedding and a funeral (MacKenzie and Foster 2018). The people involved emerge as personalities: we share their toils and tribulations. The oral testimonies we

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Figure 96 Just erected on Iona in June 1970, the Exposagg team from Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd stand in front of the replica of the St John’s Cross. Left to right Joe Findlay, Alastair MacKenzie, Jock Logan and Remo Tonetti. Missing is the engineer, J. R. Scott.

collected of those involved and people who witnessed events means that we can develop a full, rich and nuanced cultural biography of a replica. The wider point is that we looked, we asked and we found.

Understanding social value and authenticity Authenticity qualifies values. If replicas constitute a problem for people who do not like to be ‘fooled’ by them (Lowenthal 1985, 295), then we can do something different with them, starting by looking at and sharing ways in which they can be valued. We showed in earlier chapters how a given replica may have considerable

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significance and how the experience of authenticity emerges out of people’s ability to connect to the networks of people, places and things that comprise its cultural biography, to the extent that they can understand, recognise or sense it. We also saw the important role that place plays in this. Such understanding can offer a new and unexpected strand to the cultural significance of a place, if it is sought out. If there is a discomfort in the different values that people may have today, this emotion can be harnessed to positive effect in terms of visitor interest and engagement because there is a debate to be explored and further stories to be told. The value of the cultural biographical as opposed to ethnographic study is that a colourful time-depth can be developed to provide more contextual understanding for contemporary social and spiritual issues. Understanding can also be sought in relation to earlier social values and what authentic experiences might have felt like in the past. The cultural biographical approach will also be invaluable when considering not just the social and spiritual values that may attach to a replica, but also the breadth of the aesthetic, historic and scientific ones. Social and spiritual values are often the most neglected and most difficult to identify and evidence in any empirical way, but they are not the only values that matter, particularly when taking a long-term, rounded perspective that extends beyond the ‘here and now’. As noted in Chapter 1, greater weight is now starting to be attached to visitors’ emotional and experiential understandings of the places they visit. This is shaped by factors such as the weather and landscape setting; this needs to be researched on a case-by-case basis to be understood (Mills 2019). As Brumann observed, ‘it is almost impossible not to have very authentic feelings’ for the rebuilt Mostar Bridge in Herzegovina (Brumann 2017, 285). This is something the Riga Charter (2000) does not really allow for, with its emphasis on authenticity as a measure of the degree by which cultural attributes, primarily material ones, ‘credibly and accurately bear witness to their significance’. In this sense, the Charter states, replicated cultural heritage ‘is in general a misrepresentation of evidence of the past’ (2000, §5) in all but exceptional circumstances. Yet, as at the rebuilt Mostar Bridge, on Iona the St John’s Cross replica informs the experience of authenticity for many people. For instance, the St John’s Cross replica’s shadow cast by the setting sun on St Columba’s Shrine can still do something spiritually ineffable for someone, regardless of the other ways in which the knowledge that it is a concrete replica might impede their enjoyment of it. The important point here is that, while many interviewees say that they want honesty when something is a replica, and affirm that a good replica should be faithful to the original subject (form, detailing, texture, colour, matching materials/qualities of materials, etc.), our research shows that authenticity is also about experience and about narrative. As Dora put it, ‘authentic doesn’t mean from the seventh century. Authentic means that it still carries its significance in the community … authenticity is like legitimacy. It’s in the eyes of the grantor’ and happens ‘when the heart is

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moved’. Overall, our findings therefore challenge the ready assumption that a replica is ‘inauthentic’, with knock-on implications for charters that prescribe and proscribe their future creation. The key challenge for heritage managers is how to elicit and navigate the complex values and expressions of authenticity arising from multiple gazes, hardly a problem unique to replicas, but one that has been particularly neglected in their case. Our research shows that, even at the island level, gazes were highly nuanced, deeply socially embedded and involved a considerable time-depth in which individual and community memory plays a very important part. We saw in Chapter 7 how seemingly dismissive or indifferent local attitudes to the crosses, Iona Abbey and current use of its spaces, were bound up with a long history of relations between the island’s multiple communities. We also noted the ‘wallpaper’ effect. In the absence of any threat to something a lot may also go unsaid, but our research also revealed subtle forms of attachment and value among the island community. Cultural attitudes to concrete as a modern material contributed to the invisibility of the people behind the enterprise and their creativity, skill and craftsmanship. A dislike of religious symbolism, or of the suffering that the cross represents, was also a factor in how some people approached the crosses. Our results would also have been very different had we only interviewed the locals, or not contextualised their responses through ethnographic work. The contextual research for the cultural biography offers a sympathetic perspective on this (Chapter 3). Visitors brought their own manifold perspectives. To whom does such heritage ‘belong’, whose views about values count, what might we have missed? Multiple values need to be weighed up, both traditional heritage values (scientific, historical, artistic/aesthetic) and social and spiritual ones, with an awareness of their context, past and present.

Securing for the future This element of the heritage cycle embraces the heritage sector-led activities involved in the designation of assets for their legal protection, and the subsequent reactive casework, pro-active site conservation, and management of collections at such monuments, as well as community custodianship and practices. In professional contexts, heritage is formally valorised – so it makes a difference whether replicas are considered as a part of this process. At the time of the writing, the local public interest in preserving the undesignated Coventry Cross, a concrete replica of a later medieval market cross completed in 1976, exposes the ways that different communities may value another concrete replica that has not been formally attributed value by heritage professionals, and where the perceived lack of value may impact on its future. As of the end of 2019, the St John’s Cross replica is not designated (given legal protection) as part of either the scheduling or listing of Iona Abbey (Scheduled Monument 12968; Listed Building 12310). It is singled out for exclusion, not ignored. From the available information the rationale for not designating the replica

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is not clear, but we can infer that it was not deemed to meet the thresholds for designation by listing (local, regional or national, architectural or historic interest and importance), or scheduling (national significance derived from intrinsic, contextual or associative characteristics), even in the context of an Abbey complex largely recreated in the twentieth century. The original in the museum is not designated either, but that is because it is deemed to be a portable artefact and therefore ineligible. In practice, the monumental replica is part of a property in the care of Scottish Ministers and Historic Environment Scotland aims to manage such monuments in a joined-up way, regardless of whether all elements of it are designated. But what if such a replica was in the hands of a non-heritage body, or not part of a larger complex being managed as a whole? What then if it was not designated and there were, therefore, no checks in place on its future conservation and management? We picked up mixed views from heritage professionals about whether the replica should be regarded as a monument (and technically could be designated) or was an artefact, despite its monumental status and very earth-fast (indeed concrete-bound) nature. This is the classic carved stone conundrum. Often monuments that can, in theory, be moved, and often have been, they switch between being artefacts and monuments, in the care of site or collection managers, and their different curatorial discourses (Foster 2010). But the bottom line is that not being designated sends a clear message about the lack of significance attached to this replica by heritage managers. Our research did not exist when the review of the Abbey’s designation last took place in 2015 and 2016, but our interviews with heritage professionals suggest that it was all too easy to dismiss the replica and for this to go unquestioned.1 How the casework and conservation of a replica are handled should be informed by its values, current perceptions of authenticity and how these are manifest in the materiality, location and locale of the replica. A replica is no different from other heritage in that in the act of conservation, altering materiality can affect the way that the authenticity is perceived. Removing patina (e.g. lichen growth on the replica) should therefore only be done if essential on conservation grounds (Douglas-Jones et al. 2016; Eklund 2013). Our research shows the importance of the location of the replica in relation to the original (cf. Hilton of Cadboll, Jones 2004) and the other surviving elements of the Columban monastery. It also reveals the important contribution that the sensory qualities of the surrounding built and natural environment make to people’s experience of it. Although in the absence of such a precise relationship, other connections to place might be equally important, such as in a community heritage centre or local historic building.

Engaging and experiencing Just as understanding significance releases potential (Russell & Winkworth 2009; Jones 2007), the interpretation and presentation of a site founded on biographical understandings have the power to provide a unifying narrative, transcending

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the hurdles of institutional silos and disciplinary discourses. Ethnography has its part to play in revealing contemporary understandings, as we have seen. Replicas can be a meaningful and significant part of the story told at and about a heritage place. If the biography of the replica is presented as of interest, any detachment that visitors feel knowing that it is replica may be lessened (Mills 2019, 147). There are good historical and practical reasons but, as of 2019, Iona Abbey’s otherwise excellent site interpretation underplays the social interest and storytelling potential of the replica, precluding the wider community and visitors from fully engaging with it. Indeed, it can be argued there is much more to be said about the original too, given its international significance and the way in which the fabric of the cross has to be ‘listened to’ to learn the story. To help elicit ‘pastness’, Holtorf argues, we need meaningful and believable narratives that link the past and present (Holtorf 2013, 432–5). We concur, but argue that it is not just a matter of narrative or representation. The experience of authenticity and associated values are bound up with networks of relationships between people, places and things (Jones 2009; 2010). People need to be able to access these networks of relationships and in the process forge new ones for themselves. This is a dynamic process in which authenticity and value are generated, as we saw when, at the end of our interviews, we introduced a few 1970s photographs of the St John’s Cross replica being made. As Gordon put it: The fact that cross was … made of such a modern material … there’s a connection … between the tradesmen that came in the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s and rebuilt the Abbey with the people who built the original, you know. … continuity is what matters to me about the island, both in terms of the form but also what people do there.

The production of replicas, the location, methods, materials, creativity and craft involved, is therefore often an important element in their cultural significance (see Jones 2010, 190–7). We were repeatedly struck by the recurring power of craftsmanship on Iona and its ability to connect so many things. Concrete, which is after all a form of liquid stone, links the replica erected under the aegis of the Iona Cathedral Trust with the contemporary Historic Environment Scotland masons who apply their hard-won skills to conserving the Abbey’s fabric. The use of concrete is anyway a widespread feature of the Abbey, since the twentiethcentury Iona Community volunteer tradesmen who rebuilt the medieval Abbey used rather a lot of it! Iona’s beautifully carved sculptured stones were a source of inspiration for Iona Celtic Art, and indeed other jewellers and artists before the Iona-based Ritchies. Modern craftspeople with world-wide impact have drawn on the inspiration and expertise of Iona Abbey’s Benedictine architects, the medieval West Highland School of carvers, the superlative products of early medieval sculptors, and the wider communities they interacted with. From an interpretive perspective, this one (replica) monument, therefore, has the potential to embrace in some way the lives and biographies of many overlapping communities of interest across time.

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We also saw how touch is such a significant part of the experience of authenticity, for many providing what seems like a tangible connection with networks of people associated with the object’s social life (cf. Jones 2010, 193–4). As was to be expected from existing research (e.g. Douglas-Jones et al. 2016), patina is also deemed to add validity, with the latter conferring ‘a certain veneer of age’ (Ruben, a heritage practitioner). Some people feel permitted to touch the replica rather than the original (Fig. 97), while for others the immediacy of the chapel-scale museum and its dramatic interior and auratic experience is more moving and secluded, inviting touch. Heritage managers presenting sites to the public generally do not encourage touch, in museums at least, yet without this sensory act visitors can lose out on an affective experience and the creation of a special relationship. During our research, we observed other behavioural factors that acted as barriers to appreciating the authenticity and/or value of our subject, what with a nod to Holtorf we refer to as ‘anti-pastness’ (Holtorf 2013). This revealed itself in ways that impacted on how the replica (indeed the wider Abbey) was received. Combining both a place of worship and a much-visited heritage site created confusion for some religious interviewees about how they could behave, while others staying with the Iona Community found the intensive programme of activities it organised for them inhibited their ability to appreciate the aura of the place. Being a busy place, indeed a place where some people go to work, could also diminish its auratic potential (cf. James 2016, 523). Figure 97 Touching and feeling the concrete replica.

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The workshop we conducted with the island’s school children (pp. 26–7, 166–8) illustrates the importance and potential of biographical details for affective experience and education (Jones 2016a, 145). We also further enfranchised the children as stakeholders. The ruined Nunnery, with its open grounds directly in front of their school is ‘their’ space, and we let them into the ‘secret’ that the socket-stones of the original St John’s Cross lie unceremoniously in a corner, unremarked upon. This experience and enjoyment prompted their desire to understand more about the St John’s Cross, and no doubt influenced how they value the replica, thus shaping new ‘heritage futures’ (Harrison 2018, 27).

New lives, new stories There’s a story to tell here, isn’t there, about how this is all done. This is significant in its own right. I think people would like to know this. Doris

Our research is obviously specific to Iona and its special qualities, but it also illustrates broader, internationally relevant issues. Our in-depth study reveals the nuances and complexities that characterise relationships between (replicated) things, people and places. It also highlights the importance in heritage practice of building an appreciation of embedded and embodied relationships with place into understandings of authenticity and value (Jones 2009). The ‘in-situ’ nature of replicas used on heritage sites distinguishes them from most originals or replicas in museum contexts; on heritage sites, they are expected to replace and stand for something that is missing rather than develop an independent biography bound up with the story of a new place. Based on our research, we argue that wherever they are, replicas are independent beings, which acquire histories and provenance, but is there the will to change the way they are treated in heritage contexts and release their potential by speaking to their rich lives? Values emerge from stories that viewers generate for themselves by making connections with things that elicit emotions, and these connections can be prompted by what people sense, and what they know or can hook onto intellectually. These stories have interpretative capacity, but the experience of authenticity often requires individual engagement, a personal moment of magic when the ineffable qualities of something can well up (cf. Jones 2010, 190). Picking up and musing on an old photograph – or the power of touch – may be sufficient triggers, as we saw with the St John’s Cross replica. In most senses, replicas are therefore no different from other aspects of our material heritage in terms of how they ‘can work’ – visible age-value is an important consideration, but they still require a conscious effort to give them a voice. They should prod our heritage consciences, but while they are disruptive and challenging, we argue that they do not need taming, just understanding. Once freed from their secondary existence, today’s replicas become originals in their own right (cf. Digan 2015, 62), part of the archaeology of the future

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(pace James 2016, 519), and the ongoing material-discursive process that links past, present and future (cf. Harrison 2018). The next recreations of the Glasgow School of Art and Notre-Dame can speak for the passion behind the projects, the endeavour and creativity of the twenty-first-century people who (re)crafted them, the importance of the place, as well as the genius of Mackintosh or medieval architects. Reborn, they will begin to visibly age and acquire further stories. The risk is that persistent authorised heritage discourses occlude consideration of replicas. As illustrated by the Riga Charter with its focus on historical reconstructions, international guidance continues to be informed by traditional approaches to the nature of authenticity, and hence value and significance. (A)bashed cultural heritage managers may apologise for replicas rather than find ways of celebrating the richness of these stories that, even where created by heritage bodies, are about individual drive and creative endeavour, past, present or future. Case studies such as this help to query ‘quasi-monolithic understandings of authenticity’ (Labadi 2010, 81), and enable us to understand how to give the public the experience of authenticity they seek, in the spirit of Nara+20, whether at World Heritage Sites or elsewhere (Holtorf 2005, 129). Replicas can be as old and authentic as we feel them to be. There is no magic age at which something becomes old enough to involved in the production of authenticity and value; things come to life when someone invests an interest in them and their biography is activated (cf. Kenderdine 2018b, 13). Aoi, from a Buddhist background, who was showing Iona to a visiting Japanese shaman friend, captured this sentiment: When people feel it they will start loving it. I would come back and admire this replica. It will gain respect from people and will acquire its own history and therefore not be a replica anymore.

In East Asia, fuzhipin ( 複製品, Chinese for ‘exact copies’) are originals, with replication valued as part of the endless cycle of life (Han 2018). In today’s world, given current ideas about authenticity and value now permeating the West, we should not have to travel so far before replicas at heritage sites can be appreciated in the round, in a way that values their social lives (cf. Lending 2017, 235). The 1970 concrete replica of St John’s Cross on Iona illustrates that potential and our findings have wide-reaching implications. There is the need for universal guidelines that allow for cultural specifics and relativities in relation to authenticity to consider replicas in new ways. Fifty-years-old in 2020, it is therefore time to celebrate the significance of Iona’s St John’s Cross replica in the full richness of its authenticity and its concrete and non-concrete values. Our ethnographic insights illustrate the ways in which a replica can acquire authenticity and aura, how its life impacts positively on the life of the original and other copies, and how a replica can generate and extend networks, mediating experiences of authenticity in the process. Factoring in the

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rest of our interdisciplinary research, there is a case for considering this replica as both a celebration in concrete (of the original St John’s Cross, of itself, and of its ongoing, expansive social life) and a celebration of concrete (part of the motivation of the people who made it and as recognised in subsequent awards). Inspired by curiosity about a modern replica, our odyssey has spanned and shed new light on over 1200 years of the life of an internationally significant monument. We have interrogated past and present experiences of a replica through a process of multi-faceted encounter and dialogue. Our composite biographical approach lets a replica speak and be fully heard. Replicas will remain a critical part of our present and future heritage: the St John’s Cross invites us to recognise the affect and effect of their shadows. 1 In

December 2019, Historic Environment Scotland announced that it proposes to list Iona’s St John’s Cross replica at Category A (‘buildings of special architectural or historical interest which are outstanding examples of a particular period, style or building type’). Their welcome decision was prompted and informed by the new insights into the significance of the replica captured in this book. With the criteria / focus of the listing more on architectural and historic merit, and so much of the value of replicas lying in embracing their actual and ‘felt’ relationships with people, places and things, such forms of designation still struggle though to recognise and apply the rich and diverse forms of authenticity and social value revealed in this book.

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Appendices 1 Surviving physical remains of the St John’s Cross, its 1:1 replicas and their production (see Fig. 9)

1 Original cross, now on display in the Iona Abbey site museum as part of the

Abbey’s collection of associated objects, primarily carved stones. Treated as part of Historic Environment Scotland’s Collection of artefacts associated with its properties in care and neither listed nor scheduled (pic Collections Accession number iona082). Online 3d model created in 2019 by Discovery Programme on https://sketchfab.com/. Conservation files now at Historic Environment Scotland describe its measurements as 5.3m high, 4.35m from top of base to apex, base below cross-head 0.54–0.48m, cross-head span 2.17m, shaft thickness 0.26–0.22m, diameter of ring 1.25m, and projection of boss 0.095m.

2 Box-like, composite base of the original cross, in situ but reinstated, and

partly rebuilt. Western top stone is modern, as are some of the uprights between the original cornerstones; in 1970 Richard Reece told Stewart Cruden that he possibly saw the missing top stone ‘lying about’, but he may have been referring to the eastern top stone, not used in the 1954 reconstruction. The two top stones were originally clamped together with metal. From designation documents as of 2019, it is not clear whether this is included in neither the listing nor scheduling. Online 3d model created in 2017/18 by GSofASimVis on https://sketchfab.com/.

3 The two large socket-stones of the original early medieval cross

pic

Collections Accession number iona096. These were lifted from the ground in 1970 when the replica was erected and moved to the north-west corner of the Nunnery grounds, where they have lain since.

4 1901 plaster casts of the head of the cross In Glasgow Life Collections are

four independently cast fragments of the cross-head west face (cross-arms and lower part of the top arm, mounted upside down) made before the cross-head was reconstructed in 1927 (Accession number 1901.34.u). These date from 1901 when Alexander Ritchie ‘took paper squeezes off the parts forming the head and the casting (details) came out very clear’, as Ritchie reported to R. A. S. Macalister in May 1927 (551 355/1/2, nrhe). It appears Ritchie made the plaster casts himself although this cannot be proven. D. & J. McKenzie of Glasgow were paid for 19 of the plaster casts made for the Glasgow 1901 exhibition but Iona is not on the list of what they made (V&A Archives; Foster 2015, 82–3). Both sides of the head were originally cast, but when checking for these in 1965 the MoW thought that the other half had been destroyed by a landmine in 1943 (dd27/1121, nrs). See b below.

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Appendices 187

5 1905 plaster casts of the head of the cross Aberdeen Art Gallery possesses

boxed plaster casts of the head of the St John’s Cross (abdag004820). To judge from photographs attached to the box when inspected in 2011, it has four casts of the west face and five casts of the east face of the fragments then recognised as comprising the cross-head. The casts were created for display in Aberdeen’s new Celtic Court, part of its expanded museum of plaster casts from around the world. There is no paper trail for who produced the Aberdeen casts, although it may be suspected that at least some of the casts were made by D. & J. McKenzie of Glasgow (Foster 2015, 82–3). It is therefore not known if these Iona casts were moulded afresh from the original fragments or used the existing mould stemming from Ritchie’s 1901 work for Glasgow. Significantly, Aberdeen still has casts of both sides of the head while Glasgow has only one side. See b below.

6 Eleven undated, small plaster casts of details from the cross-head

and shaft of the cross. Dr Alice Blackwell encountered these in the National Museums of Scotland stores during this project, and the Museum has subsequently accessioned them (Accession number X IB 331A). Inspected, and photographed by Doug Simpson, as part of this project. Their provenance is not documented, but it seems most likely that R. B. K. Stevenson acquired them from Robertson or Mancini, given his interest in the project and his agency in acquiring a fibreglass copy for the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. Russell refers in a letter to Mancini of 11 June 1969 to sections cast from Mancini’s model by the MoW, and these are probably those test casts. Some were used to illustrate Robertson’s article about his work to reconstruct the full design of the cross, as photographs, or the basis of his illustration of interlace and other designs on the cross (Robertson 1975, figs 1 and 5, pl. 6).

7 Mancini’s 1968 plaster pattern In 1981, Ian G. Scott and Ian Fisher inspected

these in storage at Tullis Russell and Co. Ltd facilities in Glenrothes. Scott described the two sides of the head, shaft and the single final as ‘coated lightly with shellac’ and ‘separately and beautifully boxed and covered with plastic sheet’ (handwritten note by Ian G. Scott, 8 May 1981). D. F. O. Russell had found a home for these (and 8, below), in or shortly after 1973. In 1998, Crichton Lang picked them up and stored them at the Columba Centre in Fionnphort. At some point after Historic Scotland assumed management of Iona Abbey, they were moved to its Kerse Road Yard in Stirling. Unopened wooden boxes under tarpaulin seen in the external yard at Kerse Road on 25 September 2017 appear to meet the description (pic Collections Accession number E6915).

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188 My life as a replica

8 Mancini’s 1969 final plaster model, less finial, inspected with Ian and Pauline

Scott against the internal wall at Historic Environment Scotland’ Monument Conservation Unit facilities at Kerse Road, Stirling, September 2017. Ian G. Scott also saw it in Glenrothes in 1981, when it was covered with a ‘rather thick shellac’. Mancini’s final model had been lent to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in 1970 to enable Mr Reekie (Geology Department, Royal Scottish Museum) to make fibreglass copies, and the shellac may date from this point. At some point after Historic Scotland assumed management of Iona Abbey this plaster cast was moved to its Kerse Road Yard in Stirling, but only apparently after being removed from a skip at the Columba Centre on Mull by a vigilant member of staff (pic Collections Accession number E1556).

9 Fragments of 1970 gelatine mould held privately by Ian G. Scott and S. Foster. 10 1970 concrete replica standing in front of St Columba’s Shrine at Iona Abbey.

At the time of writing, not listed, and specifically excluded in words from scheduling of the Abbey. Online 3d model created in 2017/18 by GSofASimVis on https://sketchfab.com/. Technical details facing concrete

1:3 3/16˝ (5mm) crushed Criggion stone

cube results

4775 lb/sq.˝ (33 N/mm2) at 28 days

structural core

1:1:2 using ½˝ (12mm) Criggion stone,



incorporating a plasticiser. 7700 lb/sq.˝



at 28 days or 53N/mm2 at 12 days

cement

ferrocrete (rapid hardening Portland cement)

air entraining agent for facing

-¼% by weight of cement

pigment

2% black iron oxide

stainless steel prestressing

EN-58-J nickel steel 8 - 0.276˝ diameter stressed to 60% ultimate



CCL system1

concrete stresses

max. + 7.9N/mm2



min. – 2N/mm2

epoxy resin

ciba (araldite)

final dimensions

4420mm above ground, 2130mm across arms,



220mm thickness of shaft

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Appendices 189 11 1970 second copy of the concrete replica, head and shaft. This is housed

on behalf of the Iona Community Trustees by a private individual near Peebles and has not been inspected. From surviving documentation, it is unclear if this includes a finial. It was first stored outside affixed to the Juniper Green workshop of John Lawrie and his fellow artist colleague Helen Monro Turner. In 1972, J. R. Scott inspected it and noted that the quality of detail was as good at the other, but the upper part of one cross-head face had cracked along the top arm (repaired and not going to affect durability) (ms 38516/3/7, st asc: letter from J. R. Scott to H. W. Cant, 17 October 1972). In 1981 and 1982 there were unsuccessful attempts to offer this copy to Edinburgh University, which was considering displaying it near the McEwan Hall, and bodies in America.

12 Two 1970 fibreglass copies of the replica in the National Museums of Scotland

(Accession number X IB331) and Glasgow Life (Accession number A.1977.10), made by Mr Reekie of the Geology Department of the Royal Scottish Museum. R. B. K. Stevenson and Jack Scott actively sought these copies. Mancini had advised that they should be made by shellacking the model and using gelatine (Iona Cathedral Trustees Minutes, 18 March 1970), but we have not researched the technique that Reekie ended up using. Being a self-styled ‘pedant’, Stevenson wanted the finial made for the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland copy using a different stone in the fibreglass. Archival sources describe some casts that have not been traced

a The Iona Cathedral Trustees gave Professor Macalister permission to make

plaster casts of the existing fragments in December 1922, and these are reported as existing by 1925. Macalister describes casting both faces of the head, and his intention that these should be put on display in St Ronan’s (551 355, nrhe). It seems likely Macalister would have used Holmes and Jackson for these, since they worked on his reconstruction.

b Messrs J. Giusti and Co. of 405 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, established in 1867

as ‘Moulders and Figure Makers in Marble, Plaster and Cement’, reported having a 5-feet-high plaster cast of the head of the cross until shortly before 1963, when it was destroyed (ms 38516/3/7, St asc). With the surviving St John’s Cross crosshead fragments spanning in the region of six feet, it seems likely this relates to a plaster cast of the head only. These seem most likely to relate to heads made for the Glasgow 1901 or Aberdeen 1905 exhibitions rather than Macalister (see above). 1 ccl

Systems Limited Prestressed Concrete Division, Cabco House, Ewell Road, Surbiton Survey, England prepared necessary wire and bearing plate.

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190 My life as a replica

2 Archival sources Nineteenth-century visitors to Iona

bl Add ms 33633-33730. Skinner, J., 1788–1832. Journals of travels and parochial

matters, by Rev. John Skinner, Rector of Camerton, co. Somerset, profusely illustrated with water-colour drawings, and in a few instances with engravings, of the places visited and antiquities discovered. nls ms 2911. Burrell, S. W., ‘Tour’ (incorporating J Campbell’s description of Iona, 1749). nrhe Acc No 1988/18, nd. Uncatalogued manuscripts that include a H. D. Graham album entitled Antiquities, on the title page, Some few old stones & other such like old world matters in the neighbourhood of Loch Gilp. nrhe Acc No 1988/24, 1848–9. Drawings and sketches of tombs on Iona. Executing during his spell on the island, 1848–1849, the greater portion of which have been published under the name of the antiquities of scotland. 1850. By Henry D. Graham. Gent. resident in the island. nrhe Acc No 2010/16, nd. Uncatalogued illustrated manuscript produced by H. D. Graham. Early twentieth-century history up to and including the creation of the replica Four official archival sources are particularly relevant: 1 The historic minute books with newspaper cuttings, correspondence, photographs

and newspaper cuttings, pamphlets and other ephemera, etc. emanating from the Iona Cathedral Trustees: 551 355. Iona Cathedral Trust Collection, nrhe.

2 Relevant files of Historic Environment Scotland and its predecessor bodies, held

in National Archives of Scotland:

dd27/1116, 1920–1971. Iona Monuments. Scheduling of St Oran’s Chapel and Nunnery, rescheduling of Nunnery and St John’s Cross. sc22042/1/A.

dd27/1117, 1938–1981. Iona Monuments. Scheduling and de-scheduling of Iona Abbey

and claustral remains, St John’s Cross, St Matthew’s Cross and St Martin’s Cross. SC22042/1/B. dd27/1119, 1943–1965. Iona Monuments. Preservation of sculptured stones. sc22042/C/Pt2. dd27/1120, 1939–1969. Iona Monuments. Excavations and finds. sc22042/2/G/Pt1. dd27/1121, 1952–1971. Iona Monuments. St John’s Cross: restoration and reerection. sc22042/2/H/Pt1.

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Appendices 191

dd27/1122, 1956–1961. Iona Monuments. Proposals for museum to house sculptured stones, including St John’s Cross. sc22042/2/K/Pt1.

dd27/3408, 1961–1980. Celtic Monastery, Iona. Proposed museum and restoration

of Infirmary Museum. amh/3021/1/3. dd27/4193, 1964–1980. Nunnery, Chapel and St. John’s Cross. Preservation: restoration and repair. amh/281/1/1/Pt1. dd27/4715, 1955–1975. Nunnery, Chapel and St John’s Cross, Iona, Argyllshire. Legal arrangements and agreements, including proposed guardianship. amh/281/2/1. dd27/4733, 1955–1978. Celtic Monastery, Iona, Argyllshire. Carved stones in Infirmary museum. amh/3021/7/1. dd27/5158, 1988–1992. Celtic Monastery, Iona, Argyllshire. Works, financial control and scheduled monument consent, including photographs. amh/302/1/1. dd27/5175, 1972–1974. Carved Stones in the Reilig Odhrain, Iona Celtic Monastery, Argyllshire. Works and financial control. amh/3021/1/4. mw1/403, 1923–1929. Iona Monuments. Preservation of sculptured stones in schedule area (including proposals to convert Chapter House). sc22042/2/C/Pt1. 3 David F. O. Russell’s papers in University of St Andrews Special Collections

(st asc):

gb 227 ms 38516/3/1, Correspondence with George MacLeod, 1939–70, Papers of David Francis Oliphant Russell.

gb 227 ms 38516/3/2, Iona Lapidarium and St Michael’s Chapel, Papers of David Francis Oliphant Russell. gb 227 ms 38516/3/7, Iona - St John’s Cross, 1963–1981, Papers of David Francis Oliphant Russell.

Russell was an assiduous and regular correspondent who dictated to his secretary, and she meticulously filed his letters to Cant, Crane, Cruden, Innes, Hew Lorimer, MacLeod, Mancini, Richardson, Robertson, J. R. Scott, Stevenson etc., and their responses. According to his correspondence with A. C. Phillips’ sister-in-law, Pauline I. Young, on Phillips’ death Russell received ‘a remarkably kept record’ of Phillips’ correspondence: ‘You are the only interested individual I could send it to’, she said, but we have not been able to establish if this archive survives. The Sir David Russell’s papers also provide some context with their discussion about the lapidarium and a wider solution for Iona’s carved stones: GB 227 ms 38515 /9 Iona-related papers, st asc. 4 John R. Scott’s papers in relation to the St John’s Cross replica passed to Historic

Environment Scotland after his death:

551 359/536. Construction of the concrete replica of St John’s Cross, Iona, nrhe.

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192 My life as a replica

As well as including Scott’s original engineer’s drawings, and what we must assume is selective but key correspondence, paperwork and publications about the replica, this archive includes Scott’s slides and photographs of the creation of the replica and his subsequent visits, as well as photographs taken by others (John Lawrie and Arthur MacGregor, in particular). The D. F. O. Russell archive above contains some additional Scott/Exposagg-related papers, as does the Iona Cathedral Trust archives (551 355/12, nrhe). The story of Macalister’s reconstruction is to be found in his published account, the archives of the Iona Cathedral Trust, and various newspaper reports. These illuminate events, motivations and networks (Macalister 1927; 1928; Anon 1928; 551 355, nrhe). For reasons unknown, Stewart Cruden did not publish his excavations of the base of the St John’s Cross, nor indeed others he undertook on Iona. The only available information about his 1949 excavations appears to be pages torn from a note book (dd27/1120, nrs) while dd27/4193, nrs contains material relevant to his 1970 excavations, particularly a letter of 13 April 1970. nrhe Accession number 2001/143 nrhe Acc No 2001/143. Stewart Cruden Notebooks – containing notes and sketches relating to archaeological sites in Scotland also contains information relating to 1970. How Mancini and Robertson made the plaster model (Stage 1, pp. 112–13) is most usefully described in: letter from George Mancini to Harry W. Cant, 14 September 1966, Memorandum on meeting with Mr. Mancini and Mr. Norman Robertson, 28 September 1966, Note by Ian G. Scott 9 May 1981, ict Minutes of 4 October and 7 November 1966, all in 551 355, nrhe. No Norman Robertson primary archives have been located but he did publish a summary of the process at about the time he retired (Robertson 1975, 112–14). Ian G. Scott told Foster what he saw of this process at the time, shared a note he made on inspecting plaster casts stored in Tullis Russell and Co. Ltd on 9 May 1981, and spent considerable time explaining manufacturing technicalities to her. How Exposagg (John Lawrie and D. & J. Borthwick’s) made the concrete replica (Stage 2, pp. 122–3) is most usefully referenced in the J. R. Scott archive in the nrhe, and D. F. O. Russell’s correspondence with J. R. Scott and Cant (ms 38516/3/7, st ast). Ian G. Scott and John Lawrie were involved with or witnessed the creation of the concrete replica and provided invaluable insights into the technicalities, as well as their personal perspectives. Murdo MacKenzie, son of Alastair MacKenzie of Exposagg, shared his cinefilm (MacKenzie & Foster 2018), which includes the tail end of this stage, and he also spoke at length to Foster. How Exposagg (John R. Scott and Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd) erected the replica on Iona (Stage 3, pp. 130–1) is particularly well documented. The J. R. Scott archive documents this stage of the process; it includes photographs and some accounts of the replica and its history in subsequent years. Murdo MacKenzie’s cinefilm is invaluable at this stage. MacKenzie also provided very useful eye-witness testimonies and shared his Company/family archive in relation to the replica. J. R. Scott entered the replica for a series of industry awards, and

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Appendices 193

the paperwork, often translating into published accounts, are useful for both this and the preceding stage (Cement and Concrete Association 1970; 1971a; 1971b; Concrete Society 1971; Scott 2000). There is detail of the 1954 repairs in a 1965 description recorded by P. R. Ritchie of works as told him by Hugh Macdonald (dd27–1121, nrs; nb some dating inconsistencies). Relevant newspaper coverage includes: Oban Times, 1 June 1957. Scottish Sunday Express, 12 April 1970. The Scotsman, 25 September 1959, 28 September 1959, 1 October 1959, 6 October 1959, 3 June 1960, 1 October 1960, 29 June 1971. Sunday Times 14 July 1957. The life of the original cross and replica from 1970 to 2000 Files held by the Conservation Centre at Historic Environment Scotland record their work to conserve the fragments of the cross between 1973 and 1990, offering a unique photographic record of the cross in its fragmentary state:

hscc_C_690_ST, 1927–1997. St John’s Cross. Box file of various packages of

photographs and other images, Historic Environment Scotland Conservation Centre. xhscc_C_690_ST, 1973-1990. Restoration Record. St John’s Cross, Iona, Historic Environment Scotland Conservation Centre. See also:

dd30/30. Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland: minutes and papers for meetings Dec 1990. amd/16/6/Pt14. nrs. John Renshaw shared his photographs and some background documentation in relation to his role as Iona Cathedral Trust architect. Relevant newspaper coverage includes: The Scotsman, 18 October 1983, 21 July 1989, 1 May 1990.

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194 My life as a replica

3 Breakdown of ethnographic sources category

long short focus school interview interview group workshop

local residents

18



1 12

commuters to Iona to work

5





Iona Community staff past and present



tourists, short-stay

1

6

tourists, long-stay

2 12 1

non-local heritage professionals

7

involved in story of replica creation

4

appendices p186-194.indd 194

1

3

Iona Community weekly visitors 5

total female



45 51%

18 2 55%

13

100%

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Bibliography See Appendix 2 for unpublished sources. Adair, T., 2001. Spiritual attraction. The Scotsman, 5 May 2001. Aguerre, A. and Cormier, B., 2018. Introduction. In: B. Cormier, ed., Copy Culture. Sharing in the Age of Digital Reproduction. London: V&A Publishing, 19–26. Alberti, S. J. M. M., 2005. Objects and the Museum. Isis, 96(4), 559–71. Alexandridis, A. and Winkler-Horacek, L., forthcoming. Destroy the Copy – The Fate of Plaster Cast Collections.Transformationen der Antike series. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter-Verlag. Allen, J. R., 1892. Report on the sculptured stones older than a.d. 1100, with symbols and Celtic ornament, in the district of Scotland south of the River Dee; obtained under the Victoria Jubilee Gift of His Excellency Dr. R. H. Gunnning, f.s. a . Scot. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 26 (1891–2), 251–9. Allen, J. R., 1901. The Early Christian monuments of Iona; with some suggestions for their better preservation. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 35 (1900–1), 79–93. Allen, J. R. and Anderson, J., 1903 (repr. 1993). The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland. Edinburgh (repr. Balgavies): Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (repr. The Pinkfoot Press). amb for Scotland, 1959. Monuments of Iona. Memorandum from W Douglas Simpson, Chairman Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland to Minister of Works, 2 July 1959. Copy in dd27/1122. amb for Scotland, 1960. Sixth Report. 1959. amb for Scotland, 1970. Sixteenth Annual Report 1969. amb for Scotland, 1971. Seventeenth Annual Report 1970. amb for Scotland, 1985. Thirty-second Annual Report 1985. amb for England, Scotland and Wales, 1961. Eighth Annual Reports 1961. amb for England, Scotland and Wales, 1963. Tenth Annual Reports 1963. amb for England, Scotland and Wales, 1964. Eleventh Annual Reports 1964. amb for England, Scotland and Wales, 1967. Fourteenth Annual Reports 1967. Anderson, J., 1881. Scotland in Early Christian Times (Second Series). The Rhind Lectures in Archaeology for 1880. Edinburgh: David Douglas. Anon, 1870, 22 December. The Duke of Argyll on the state of Iona. Inverness Courier. Anon, 1883. Iona in 1771, an account of Icolumbkil by a tourist, translated from the Irish. Oban: Duncan Cameron. Anon, 1892. Tourists in the Western Highlands iii., Iona. Visiting the tombs of the kings. The Graphic, 46(6 August). Anon, 1901. Glasgow International Exhibition 1901. Official Catalogue. Glasgow: Charles P Watson. A non, 1928. St. John’s Cross, Iona: fragments f itted together by Professor R. A. S. Macalister in 1927. Scottish Country Life, 353. Anon, 1970. St John’s Cross. A new chapter begins on Iona. Scots Magazine, June, 382–5. Appadurai, A., ed., 1986 (repr. 2010). The Social Life of Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Australia icomos, 1979 revised 2013. The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance. Burwood: Australia icomos. Balfour, F., 1911. Lady Victoria Campbell:  A Memoir. Hodder and Stoughton. Bannerman, J., 1993. Comarba Coluim Chille and the relics of Columba. Innes Review, 44(1), 14–47. Bannerman, J., 1997. The Scottish takeover of Pictland and the relics of Columba. Innes Review, 48(1), 27–44. Barber, J., 1981. Excavation of the cross base at Kilnave, Islay. Glasgow Archaeological Journal, 8, 95–102.

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Bibliography 205 Ó Floinn, R., 2012. Reproducing the past: making replicas of Irish antiquities. In: P. Harbison and V. Hall, eds, A Carnival of Learning. Essays to Honour George Cunningham and his 50 Conferences on Medieval Ireland in the Cistercian Abbey of Mount St. Joseph, Roscrea, 1987–2012. Roscrea: Cistercian Press, 146–57. O’Loughlin, T., 1997. Living in the ocean. In: C. Bourke, ed., Studies in the Cult of the Saint Columba. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 11–23. O’Loughlin, T., 2010. The De locis sanctis as a liturgical text. In: J. Wooding, ed., Adomnán of Iona: Theologian, Lawmaker, Peacemaker. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 181–92. Orvell, M., 1989. The Real Thing. Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture 1880–1940. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press. O’Sullivan, J., 1998. ‘More than the sum of the parts. Iona: archaeological investigations 1875–1996’. Church Archaeology, 2, 5–18. O’Su lliva n, J., 1999. Iona: a rchaeologic a l investigations, 1875 –1996. In: D. Broun and T. O. Clancy, eds, Spes Scotorum: Hope of Scots. Saint Columba, Iona and Scotland. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 215–43. Otter, W., 1824. The Life and Remains of the Rev. Edward Daniel Clarke, ll.d. Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge. London: George Cowie and Co. Pearson, F., 1989. George Mancini, bronze caster. In: Scottish Society For Art History, ed., Scotland and Italy. Papers presented at the fourth annual conference of the Scottish Society for Art History. Not stated: Published with the support of the Italian Institute, Edinburgh and the Scottish Arts Council, 124–31. Pearson, M. and Shanks, M., 2001. Theatre/Archaeology. London and New York: Routledge. Perry, S., 2013. Archaeological visualization and the manifestation of the  discipline: model-ma k ing at the Institute of A rchaeolog y, London. In: B. A lberti, A. M. Jones, J. O’Sullivan and J. Pollard, eds, Archaeology after Interpretation. Returning Materials to Archaeological Theory. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, Inc, 281–303. Phillips, A. C., 1958. The Fallen Cross. Bradford: Percy Lund, privately published. Pink, S. and Morgan, J., 2013. Short-term ethnography: intense routes to knowing. Symbolic Interaction, 36(3), 351–61. Pittock, M. G. H., 1999. The Celtic Identity and the British Image. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Plunkett, G. T., 1906. The Circulation Branch. Museums Journal, 5 (1905–6), 317–31. Pottle, F. A. and Bennett, C. H., eds, 1963. Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, ll.d.., 1773. Melbourne, London, Toronto: William Heinemann Ltd. Pulliam, H., 2013. Blood, water and stone: the performative cross. In: J. Hawkes, ed., Making Histories. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Insular Art York 2011. Donington: Shaun Tyas, 262–78. Pye, E., 2001. Caring for the Past: Issues in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums. London: James & James Science. Rackowitz, M., ed., 2007. Travels to Terra Incognita. The Scottish Highlands and Hebrides in Early Modern Travellers’ Accounts c. 1600–1800. Münster, New York, München, Berlin: Waxmann. rcahms, 1982. Argyll: An Inventory of the Monuments, Volume 4. Iona. Edinburgh: hmso. Reid, I., 1970. St John’s Cross. Coracle, 57, 7–9. Riegl, A., 1982 [1902]. The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Origins. Reprinted in Oppositions 25. New York: Rizzoli. Ritchie, A. and Ritchie, E., 1928. Map of Iona with a Sketch Historical and Geological of the Island. Edinburgh: Geo. Stewart & Co. Ltd. Robertson, W. N., 1975. St John’s Cross, Iona, Argyll. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 106 (1974–5), 111–23. Ruskin, J., 1865. The Political Economy of Art. London and Glasgow: Collin’s Penny Library. Russell, R. and Winkworth, K., 2009. Significance 2.0: A Guide to Assessing the Significance of Collections. Available: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/112443/20101122-1236/significance. collectionscouncil.com.au/pdf/bw/bSignificance20.pdf. 2nd edn. Rundle Mall: Collections Council of Australia Ltd. Sacheverell, W., 1702. An Account of the Isle of Man, with a Voyage to I-Columb-Kill.

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Index Note Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

a Abbess stone (Prioress Anna MacLean’s tombstone) 50 Aberdeen Art Gallery 109, 188, 190 accord project 26 agency 3, 20, 22, 92 of carved stones 46, 158, 160 of local community 159 of non-heritage professionals 176 of replicas 21 of St John’s Cross replica 158, 160 spiritual 158 Allen, J. Romilly 39, 53, 88–89, 92, 94 Ancient Monuments Board (for Scotland) 47, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 106, 103, 107, 108, 109, 110, 125, 134, 146, 194 Secretary 11 see also Simpson Ancient Monuments legislation 54 Anderson, Joseph 73, 94 Anderson, Sir Robert Rowand 53 antiquarians 13, 17, 21, 24, 33, 39, 47, 48–53, 60, 92, 94, 111, 140 damage by 52 Drummond, James 52 Duncan, Reverend Henry 146 Graham, Mrs. 16 Lhuyd, Edward 24, 81, 82 Skene, William F. 53 see also Allen, Anderson, Graham, Skinner, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Aosdàna 156, 156 archaeologists 19, 41, 97, 151 Burley, Elizabeth 120 Close-Brooks, Joanna 115 Cramp, Dame Rosemary 140 Crawford, O. G. S. 88 Fowler, Peter 120 Macalister, Robert A. S. 86 O’Sullivan, Jerry 97 Radford, C. A. Ralegh 106, 125 Redknap, Mark 120 Reece, Richard 120, 187 Ritchie, P. R. 194 Steer, Kenneth 115, 140, 141 Thomas, Charles 120, 151 see also Stevenson (R. B. K.) architects 25, 39, 53, 56, 109, 116, 149, 181

index p208-223.indd 208

Anderson, Sir Robert Rowand 53 Corbusier 116 Crichton Lang, Willis and Galloway 146 Dryden, Henry 83, 84, 93 Fairlie, Reginald 39 Honeyman, John 39 Lang, Crichton 146, 149, 188 Lindsay, Ian G. 39, 54, 56, 58, 106, 146 & Partners’ summary of Abbey rebuild 40 MacGregor Chalmers, Peter 39, 88 Mackintosh, Charles Rennie 114, 184 Renshaw, John 146, 194 Ross, Thomas 39 Scottish Development Department (sdd) 145 Smith, Graham T. 146 Smith, William J. 109 Yeoman McAllister 146 see also Cruden, Richardson architectural historians 145, 150–1 Argyll, dukes of 38, 39, 52, 53, 63 8th Duke of 39, 52 Duchess, first wife of 38 11th Duke of Louis, Duchess, wife of 130 Synod of 35 Argyll Council 59, 60, 62 art historians 73, 81, 144, 145, 150, 151 Baldwin Brown, Gerard 39 Henderson, George 140 Henderson, Isabel 140 see also Fisher artists 7, 17, 24, 39, 48, 49, 94, 18 Alpe, Jonquil, painting by 61 Cadell, F. C. B. 39 Coventry, Charles William 116 Duncan, John 39 Gibb, A., drawing by 95 Gibb, R. 39 Graham, Henry D. 89, 90–1 Hall, Sidney P., illustration by 62 Lipschitz, Jacques 103, 135 McTaggart, W. 39 Monro Turner, Helen 115–16, 189 Robertson, Norman 110 Stevenson, John 141, 145

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Index 209 see also Fisher, Lawrie, painters, Ritchie (Alec), Ritchie (Euphemia), Scott (Ian G.) art schools 11 audioguides 9 aura 2, 8, 10, 20, 21, 160, 163, 165, 172, 174, 182, 184 of original 160 of replicas 172 authenticity 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 16, 44, 111, 153, 162, 163, 173, and aura 10 acquisition of 172, 174 alternative senses of 174 and touch 182 and tradition 9 appreciation of 174 attitudes to 105 changing understandings of 11 contemporary attitudes to 175 cult of the original 7, 14 culturally-specific approach to 8 current perceptions of 180 definition of 8 elusiveness of 155 experience of 10, 21, 28, 78, 156, 164, 174, 175, 178, 182, 183, 184 expressions of 179 generation of 10, 11, 46, 181 informing of 10 and legitimacy 178 location of 172 manipulation of 9 materialist approach to 8, 9 and materiality 176, 178 mobilisation of 28 modernist attitudes to 14, 181 modern understandings of 133 mutual reproduction of 10 negotiation of 10, 25, 46, 174 production of 184 quest for 9 regionally-specific approach to 8 rethinking 172–3 threat of replicas to 14 traditional attitudes to 10, 14, 105, 184 understandings of 11, 25, 171, 177–9, 180 see also replicas, St John’s Cross replica

b Battle of the Casts, Boston, Massachusetts 8 bells, early medieval 56 belonging, sense of 3, 45, 98, 160 Benjamin, Walter 21 biographies, cultural 1, 3, 16, 25, 156, 176, 178, 184 composite 2, 10, 19, 20, 21, 159, 166, 172, 173, 175, 185

index p208-223.indd 209

carved stones 3, 19, 149, 179 replicas 7, 10, 14, 175, 177, 178, 181 see also St John’s Cross, St John’s Cross replica Blue Circle Group (Cement Marketing Company) 135 Borthwick, D. & J. 119, 122, 124, 126, 127, 193 Borthwick, David 123 Day, Tam 166 Drysdale, Jackie 119, 123, 166 Brandsbutt, Aberdeenshire 163 Brand Iona 139, 152–3 Brough of Birsay replica, Orkney 107 Brown, C & J 149

c Calvary, Cross of 20 Cant, Harry 105, 106, 110, 114, 121, 133, 134, 190, 192, 193 Carnegie uk Trust 57 carpentry techniques, early medieval 144 carved stones of Iona 29, 33, 47–66, 92, 145 181 agency of 46 appropriation for gravestones 49 as art 160 calls for preservation of 49 dispersal of 63 dual identity of 48 experience of 151 fragility of 160 fragmented nature of 47–8 historical archives 46 inscriptions 86 international significance 47 landscape of 48 later medieval 63 materiality of 151 mobility of 47–8, 58 in National Museum of Scotland 63 national significance 47 ownership of 48 preservation of 48, 52, 54, 60 in private care 63 responsibility for 48, 107 as source for jewellery design 17 value as cultural resource 62 Castle Dunstaffnage, Argyll and Bute 131, 137 casts, concrete 116, 122–4 see also concrete casts, plaster 8, 11, 14, 164, 187 Aberdeen Celtic Court Exhibition (1905) 109 collections of 14 Dublin 109 by Gipsformerei, Berlin 14 International Exhibition Glasgow (1901) 23, 89, 109, 187, 190

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210 My life as a replica Irish high crosses 107, 109 Laocoön 16 see also formatori, St John’s Cross replica Catholic Church 39 Celtic Christianity 44, 45, 158 ‘Celtic’ cross 2, 17, 116, 140, 149, 158 Celtic Revival 17, 92 Cembureau (European Cement Association) 135 cement 100, 144 see also formatori, Giusti and Co. Cement and Concrete Association Research Establishment 116 Central Excavation Unit 137 charters, heritage 179 Burra Charter (1979, 2013) 9, 11, 171, 175 Nara Document on Authenticity, The (1994) 8, 175 Nara+20 184 Riga Charter 171, 175, 178, 184 unesco World Heritage Convention (1972) 8 Venice Charter (1964) 8 Christianity 2, 48, 56 adoption by Norse settlers 83 see also Celtic Christianity Christmas Eve Massacre (ad 986) 83 Church of Scotland 39, 43, 55, 134, 158 Art Committee architect 109 Longmuir, Very Reverend Dr 134–5 Moderator of 103, 134 Reid, Reverend Ian 134 see also MacLeod ciment fondu 145 clach-bràth 82, 88 coal 126, 130, 132, 167, 176 see also puffer Coles, Henry 14 Columba Centre 188 Columban Church, headship of 83–4 Columbia College, South Carolina 136 composers 48 concrete 1–4, 105, 106, 109, 110, 121, 132, 133, 134, 145, 153, 162, 175, 178, 184, 189, 193 aggregates 120, 136 and authenticity 174 and glass windows 116, 117 appearance of 120 attitudes to 179 celebration in/of 4, 185 copies 16, 107 experience of 168 liquid stone 181 manufacturers of 115 mixed by hand 130 mixer 126, 168 mixes 136 negative connotations for St John’s Cross replica 164–5

index p208-223.indd 210

post-tensioned 117, 122, 124, 130, 136 prestressed 122, 136, 164 reinforced 86 sandblasted 115, 116 strength of 122 technology 135 texture 122 traditional attitudes to 172 see also replicas, St John’s Cross replica Concrete Society Mature Categories Award 120 conservation 3, 16, 21, 25, 40, 53, 56, 85, 145, 147, 164, 179 designation of 174 philosophy and practice 176 of plaster casts 15 policies 9 of replicas 180 tangible dimensions of 172 values-based 171 see also charters conservators 25, 149 Carthy, Deborah 149 Day, Tam 166 Gentles, John 145 Hodgson, Sarah 149 Puisto, Johanna 15 Reekie, Mr 189, 190 at Victoria and Albert Museum 14 see also Robertson Coracle 134 Coventry Cross 179 craft 1, 2, 4, 11, 17, 155, 156, 173, 181 concrete 164 of St John’s Cross replica 174 traditions 9 workshops, early medieval 68 craftsmanship 1, 133, 179 assumptions about absence of 174 of replicas 14 recurring power of 181 craftspeople 14, 17, 47, 66, 67, 68, 73, 94, 119, 126, 149, 165, 166, 181 eighth-century 162, 168 of Iona Abbey rebuilding 166 McKechnie, Attie 149 from Pictland 142 skills of 145, 149, 165, 168, 174, 175 twentieth-century 145 Crane, G. D. 110 crofters, crofting 33, 38, 101 crosses bases of 63 early medieval tradition of vocality of 20

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Index 211 human-like experiences of 20 of Iona 35–8 see also MacLean’s Cross, St John’s Cross, St Martin’s Cross, St Matthew’s Cross attitudes to, local 179 cross-slab see Hilton of Cadboll, Nigg, Sueno’s Stone Cruden, Stewart 54, 56, 62, 97, 100, 108, 109, 111, 120, 125, 130, 132, 134, 137, 187, 192 excavations of 121, 125, 193 curators 8, 47, 109, 114, 176 Currie, Sir Donald, monument to 17

d Department of the Environment, Ancient Monuments Branch 53 Diocese of the Isles 83 Discovery Programme 24, 80, 144, 152, 187 scan of St John’s Cross 23, 24, 81, 147, 152 dislocation, displacement 28, 29, 156, 160 of monuments 3 Doide, Loch Sween 73 druids 49 Dublin, Ireland 14, 17, 84, 109 Duchess Cross 32, 37, 38, 38, 47 Dupplin Cross 20 D. U. R. see Ratcliffe, Dorothy Una

e Eastern Orthodox Church 96, 159 Edinburgh College of Art, Department of Glass Engraving 115, 116 enchantment of Iona 50 of replicas 168 of stone 21, 82 engineers 24, 115, 122, 126, 137, 152, 165, 166 Laurie, John 137 see also Exposagg Ltd, Scott (John R.) engravers 175 Eros, Picadilly Circus, London 107 ethnicity, mixed 88 ethnographic research 3, 4, 22, 25, 26, 28, 26, 28, 44, 46, 62, 97, 155, 159, 162, 174, 175, 178, 179, 195 benefits of 176 heritage implications of 171 ethnography, 171, 172, 175, 181 see also ethnographic exhibitions Aberdeen Celtic Court (1905) 109, 190 Dublin Great Industrial Exhibition (1853) 17 Great Exhibition (1851) 17 International Exhibition Glasgow (1901) 23, 89, 109, 187, 190 Irish High Crosses (2005–2010) 14

index p208-223.indd 211

Paris Exposition (1867) 11 experiences of Iona 2, 163 aesthetic 49 centrality of carved stones to 49 chronological layering of 45 community 158 heritage 45 historic 45 insistent presences in 46 layered 42, 45, 46 as liminal landscape 44 lived 100 ‘out-of-time’, sense of 45 personal 156 pilgrim 158 religious 45 Romantic 45 rural 45 scenic 45 specialness of 28, 45, 46 spiritual 45, 46, 160 walking ‘ruminations’ 44 see also antiquarians, visitors, poets, composers Exposagg Ltd 121, 122–4, 125, 126, 130, 132, 134, 193 directors 115, 137 see also Laurie, Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd, Scott (John R.)

f faith 55, 56, 57 see also Protestantism identification with 26 post-denominational 26 fakes 7 replicas as 14, 165, 174 ‘felt relationships’ 2, 14, 173, 182 association with composite biographies 10 generation of 175 fibreglass 62, 110, 111, 115, 133, 188, 189, 190 film, cine 24, 125, 137, 193 Study in Concrete (1970) 126, 134–5, 166–176 see also video Findhorn Foundation 39, 168 Fionnphort Centre, Mull 63, 188 Fisher, Ian 28, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 188 formatori (skilled plaster workers) 109 Gaggini, Douglas see also Giusti and Co. Gipsformerei 14 Giusti and Co., Messrs J. 109, 190 Holmes and Jackson Ltd 86, 190 McKenzie, D. & J. 187, 188 fragmentation 3, 29, 48, 82–86 see also Hilton of Cadboll, St John’s Cross fuzhipin (‘exact copies’) 184

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212 My life as a replica

g Gaelic booklet (1771) 24 language 33, 49, 60, 92, 163 name 93 population of Iona 83 gazes (ways of seeing) 42, 49, 156, 179 gelatine (jelly) 189, 190 see also St John’s Cross replica Govan Old Parish Church 106 Glasgow Life Collections 187, 190 Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries 133 Glasgow School of Art 11, 16, 86, 152, 184 GSofASimVis digital model 23, 26, 187, 189 glass 115, 116, 117 see also St John’s Cross glassworkers, early medieval 69 Glenlight Shipping Company 132 Glenrothes, Fife 188 Graham, Henry D. 24, 52, 60, 85, 89 gravemarkers, gravestones 111 of early ecclesiastics 71 family 60–2 later medieval 47, 52 modern 47 reused 62 see also Reilig Odhráin guidebook (1790s) 60 on carved stones of Iona 152 Map of Iona (1928) 92

h Hebrides, monuments of 47, 58 heritage Asian approach to 8 Christian 56 constructivist approach to 9 cycle 170, 171, 175, 179 discourses 9 education 21 global experiences of 11 intangible 8 interpretation 21 management 8, 15, 160, 171, 172 managers 179, 180, 184 materialist approach to 9 natural 40 ownership of 179 professionals 25, 28, 59, 136, 159, 160, 162, 164, 165, 172, 176, 179, 180, 195 setting 59 spiritual 9 valorisation of 179 Western approach to 8

index p208-223.indd 212

values 179 see also charters, Historic Environment Scotland, Historic Scotland high crosses bases of 63 Irish 17, 107, 109, 140, 143 engagement with 26 Highland Clearances, metaphor of 3 Hilton of Cadboll cross-slab 28 as national icon 3 displacement of 29 ethnographic research on 159 fragmentation of 29 replica (1998–2005) 19, 120, 159, 176, 180 historians 111 Duncan, Archie 133 MacArthur, Mairi 17, 35 see also Fisher Historic Environment Scotland (hes) 4, 22, 24, 28, 29, 40, 41, 42, 43, 63, 137, 150, 153, 161, 163, 168, 180, 181, 185, 187, 192, 194 Conservation Centre 194 Monument Conservation Unit 188 Historic Scotland 22, 40, 114, 149, 152, 188, 189 Research Seminar (2012) 149, 150, 152 see also Historic Environment Scotland (hes) hygrometer 116, 124 hymn, Cantemus in omni die 78

i

International Council on Monuments and Sites (icomos) 8, 9, 11, 171, 175 iconoclasm 3 iconography 22, 72, 78, 80, 81, 151 identity 3, 20,41, 42, 43, 45 defining 2 dual 48 Insular 13 for Iona Abbey 58 of Iona 46 Irish 17 national 33 negotiation of 46 personal 88 politics 9 struggle for 46 Infirmary 55, 57, 59, 63, 107, 145 converted to museum 58, 146 Inishmurray, County Sligo, Ireland 82 Innes, Gilbert 60, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 117, 120, 131, 132, 133, 136, 192 inscriptions, stone 48, 86 Insh and Alvie Church, Kincraig, Highland 116

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Index 213 Inspector of Ancient Monuments 54, 56, 107, 109 Institution of Structural Engineers Scottish Branch Services 135 Inverary Castle, Argyll and Bute 63 Iona Abbey 1, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 63, 67, 79, 82, 93, 94, 97, 100, 103, 106, 125, 130, 139, 149, 160, 166, 182 abbots 84 see also Adomnán archaeological significance 59, 96 architects, Benedictine 181 as a form of replication 29 as national patrimony 59 attitudes to, local 159, 179 Benedictine 83, 163 Chapter House 54, 55 claustral buildings 40, 43, 54 clearing of 53 cloisters 54, 63, 71, 83, 145, 135 conservation of 40, 53, 181 courtyard 84 custodian 54, 60 designation of 28, 54, 59, 109, 168, 172, 179, 180, 185, 189 doorway, west 86, 145 foundation of 18–19, 83, 84 gates 43, 161 Guest House 59 as international asset 94 later medieval buildings 39 later medieval monuments 115 management board 149 master mason 126 nave 71 new identity for 58 paid entry to 43 recreation of 39, 56, 68, 100, 103, 105, 106, 135, 136, 181 Reilig Odhráin stones moved to 62, 62 setting of 59 guardianship, taken into (1999) 22 tenants 156 tower 83, 101 transept, north 84 wedding at 126 Welcome Centre and Shop 43 well 71, 72, 83, 84 worshippers 43 see also Infirmary, Iona Abbey Church, Iona Abbey Museum, Iona monastery Iona Abbey Church (St Mary’s) 43, 50, 51, 63, 69, 71, 73, 79, 83, 85, 88 elevation to Cathedral status 42 listing of 59 remodelled as cathedral 83 restoration of 39, 42

index p208-223.indd 213

Iona Abbey Limited, director 149 Iona Abbey Museum 22, 36, 36, 40, 54, 63, 139, 147, 148–50, 148, 153, 159, 162, 163, 180, 182, 187 Iona Appeal Trust 54, 57, 106, 135, 146 Iona Cathedral Trust (‘the Trustees’) 21, 24, 25, 39, 40, 41, 42, 54, 58, 59, 60, 63, 86, 88, 100, 103, 106, 107, 110, 114, 115, 117, 122, 125, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 145, 147, 149, 181, 190, 194 acquired ownership of Iona Abbey 53 archives 193 see also Cant Iona Cathedral, see Iona Abbey Church Iona Celtic Art 17, 18, 60, 156, 181 Iona Club 52, 60 Iona Community 25, 33, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 54, 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 68, 96, 96, 100, 103, 105, 106, 126, 131, 132, 135, 136, 145, 155, 158, 159, 163, 166, 181, 182, 189 arrival of 39 Edwards, Keith (Warden) 128 history of 22 Leader 134 pilgrimages 97 Iona Community Council 41 Iona Conservation Area 59 Iona Heritage Centre 41, 42–3 Iona Manse garden 88, 92 Iona monastery 68, 69, 72, 78, 83, 161 Iona Nunnery 23, 33, 35, 40, 42, 47, 49, 50, 52, 54, 58, 59, 164, 183, 187 Iona Nunnery Preservation Group 59 setting of 59 Iona Parish Church 40, 43, 42, 58 Iona Primary School 42 archaeological excavations at 41 artwork by 26, 28, 129, 157, 167, 167, workshop 25, 27, 166–8, 183, 195 Iona Village Hall 166 Ireland 11, 18, 19, 33, 69, 73, 84, 85, 88, 89 abbots from 68 early medieval sculpture of 12, 47, 115, 140 high crosses of 14, 17, 82, 107, 108, 109, 121, 141, 143 islanders 29, 33, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 49, 50, 60, 62, 83, 99, 100, 126, 136, 156, 158, 163, 172, 179 sense of ownership of Iona Abbey 159

j Jacob wrestling with the angel 80, 82 Jeffrey, Stuart, xix, 27 Jerusalem 69, 78, 81 Basilica (church) 71 Church of the Holy Sepulchre 68, 72 Edicule 71 Golgotha 71, 79

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214 My life as a replica St Mary’s chapel 72 shrine of the Chalice 71 jewellers 17, 181 Anglo-Saxon 81 see also Ritchie (Alexander), Ritchie (Euphemia) jewellery 7, 17, 94, 155 copies of Celtic crosses 92, 94 shops 153, 156, 156 journalist see Vowles, A. C.

k Kells, Book of 19, 68, 69, 73, 84, 140, 143 Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow 109 Kildalton Cross 17, 56, 79, 82, 88, 143 replica of 16 Kilgarth Fund 132 Kilnave, Islay 137 Kingussie Parish Church 116

l lapidarium 53, 58, 59, 107, 108, 109, 120, 192 Lawrie, Adrian 28, 117 Lawrie, John 28, 115–117, 119, 120, 122, 124, 127, 131, 133, 164, 166, 189, 193 lawyers J. and F. Anderson 106 see also Cant, Harry lichen 88, 93, 133, 164, 180 lime 1, 4, 145 Lindisfarne Gospels 69 liturgical practices, early medieval 78 Lord of the Isles 84, 101 Loretto Chapel, Musselburgh 117

m Macalister, Robert A. S. 86–92, 96, 100, 101, 121, 140, 153, 187, 190, 193 Macalister, Sir Donald and Edith 86, 88 Macdonald, Hugh 100, 194 Macdonald, John 88 MacFayden, Doodie (Donald) 126, 130, 131, 132, 167, 168 MacGregor, Arthur 193 MacKenzie, Murdo (Murdoch) 24, 25, 28, 125, 126, 130, 132, 137, 166, 176, 193 Study in Concrete 125–6, 134–5, 137, 147, 193 MacKinnon’s Cross 53 MacLauchlan, D. 100, 120 MacLean’s Cross 32, 35, 42–3, 50 MacLeod, Reverend George 39–41, 43, 46, 54, 55–7, 57, 59, 60, 63, 96, 101, 103, 106, 108, 109, 135–6, 158 MacPherson, Calum (piper) 126 Mancini, George 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112–13, 113, 114, 115, 122, 132, 133, 134, 141, 188, 190, 192, 193

index p208-223.indd 214

statues by 107, 112, 115 see also St John’s Cross replica manuscripts, illuminated 67, 68, 89 marble 18, 83, 96, 109, 190 Martyr’s Bay 35, 37, 50, 126, 167 masons see stonemasons materiality and authenticity 1, 4, 25, 133, 180 in cultural biographical approach 20 of carved stones 78, 149 of replicas 172, 173 sense of 162 see also St John’s Cross, St John’s Cross replica memory, social 20, 159, 179 generation of 171 memory-work 3 negotiation of 171 metalworkers early medieval 67, 69 Watts, Ronnie 146 mica-schist 71, 77, 78, 151 Michelangelo’s David, Florence, Italy 10 Miller, Margaret, monument to 17 millstone 77 Ministry of Buildings and Public Works (‘the Ministry’) 54, 56, 60, 62, 96, 97, 100, 103, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 120, 126, 132, 134, 137, 145, 187, 188 masons 131 guidebook 111 research assistant 58 skilled labour 58 Minister of Works 106 modellers 86 models 7, 58, 113, 133 3d digital 10, 23, 26, 80, 81, 144, 152, 158, 187, 189 3d photogrammetric 26 composite relief 112 wooden 17 monks of Iona 47, 67, 68, 69, 73, 78, 81, 82, 83, 117, 144, 151, 168 cemetery of 71 mortar 1, 4, 124 Mostar Bridge, Herzegovina 178 Mull 33, 48, 49, 50, 50, 52, 63, 69, 77, 78, 101, 126, 149, 189 multiple communities 3, 29, 42, 46, 48, 62, 78, 105, 156, 179 Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd 125, 126, 130, 132, 193 Findlay, Joe 177 Logan, Jock 60, 94, 177 MacKenzie, Alastair 125, 132, 177, 193 Tonetti, Remo 128, 177

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Index 215 n

o

Iona Community 44, 97, 158, 159 Irish practices of 21 landscape of 47 later medieval 85 leaders 44 secular 161 pilgrims 2, 35, 49, 59, 67, 69, 81, 114, 135 early medieval 68, 71, 72, 78, 82 place-making 2, 3, 44, 178 place, sense of 160–3, 176 plasterers 86, 109 Borthwick, D. & J. 119 see also casts (plaster), formatori poetry 72 early medieval 68 Ossianic 49 ‘The Fallen Cross’ (1957) 98, 100, 101 poets Crawford, Robert 46 Herbert, George 168 Keats, John 48 Ratcliffe, Dorothy Una (D. U. R.) 98–101, 98 Wordsworth, William 48 Portland cement 86, 145, 189 Portmahomack, Highland 28, 73 postcards 24, 25, 56, 79, 87, 96, 153 of Iona Abbey 53, 166 prehistoric rock art 89, 176 Protestantism 26, 55 puffer 126, 130, 131, 167

Oban, Argyll and Bute 18, 149 Owen, Dale 135

r

National Library of Scotland 116 National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland 3, 13, 29, 56, 94, 107, 115, 133, 188, 190 National Museum of Ireland 14, 107, 108 National Museums of Scotland 63, 188, 190 National Trust for Scotland 40 Neolithic settlement 41 networks (relationships) 3, 132 between people, places and objects 1, 2, 10, 21, 44, 172, 173, 174, 178, 181, 193 between scholars, artists, patrons and craftspeople 17 extension of 184 forging of new 181 international 42 of Iona monastery 69 personal 98, 105 social 4, 136, 156, 160, 163 material 4, 156 tangible and intangible 10 New Jerusalem, model of (concept) 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 78, 81, 151 nickel steel 117, 122, 124, 189 Nigg cross-slab 28, 73 non-concrete values 1–4, 175, 184 Norse 83, 84 Northumbria 67, 68, 73 Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, France 11, 184

p painted stone, possibility of 78 pastness 10, 133, 156 elicitation of 181 incorporation of 82, 120, 136 material evidence of 164–5 in replicas 174 patina 10, 133, 164, 165, 182 removing 180 patrimony 89 Phillips, Alfred Charles 98–9, 101, 107, 108, 192 The Fallen Cross (1958) 68, 98, 98, 99, 106, 107, 109 photographers Beveridge, Ernest, photgraph by 94 Quick, Geoffrey 139 Vowles, A. C. see Phillips (Alfred Charles) Washington Wilson, George, photograph by 53, 93 Picts, Pictland 28, 68, 73, 107, 140, 142, 144, 163 pilgrimage 2, 9, 26, 135 at Iona 86

index p208-223.indd 215

Ratcliffe, Dorothy Una (D. U. R.) 98–101, 99, 100, 101 ‘The Fallen Cross’ (1957) 98–103, 134 Reformation, the 46, 82, 83 Reilig Odhráin 33, 37, 42, 44, 49, 50, 52, 54, 63, 89, 92, 94 carved stones from 36, 58, 60, 62, 94 enclosing wall 62 islanders’ place of burial 60 specialness of 62 ‘Tombs of the chiefs’, ‘Tombs of the kings’ 52 replicas 1, 3, 7, 22, 25, 28, 63, 68, 35–6, 176 analogue (physical) 10, 11–16 and aesthetic choices 13 in art-historical circles 8 and authenticity 115, 133, 171 and inauthenticity 10 and industrial design 13 and intangible interests 175 and tangible interests 175 as misrepresentation of past 178 as proxy to originals 174

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216 My life as a replica as research tools 13 biographical moments in life of 21 ‘Celtic’ 12 circulation of 11, 13 colour 178 community engagement with 176 definition of 7–8 as descriptor 111 digital 10, 14, 16, 23, 176 Eilean Mor, Argyll cross 16, 107 emotional impact of 20, 21 exchange of 11 fibreglass 110 for art training 13 fragility of 14 Govan Old Parish Church cross 106 in Scotland 16 international policies for 28 Irish 12 magical experience of 175 Manx 12 materials of 178 metaphorical life of 20 modernist attitudes to 172 multiple values of 171 museum destruction of 14 Palmyra arch 174–5 pejorative overtones of 8 perceptions of the value of 16 power of 19 recontextualisation of 16 research into 175 Scottish 12 sensory impact of 20, 21 silencing of 20 skills of makers of 175, 179 South Kensington system 13 terminology 174 texture of 178 theorisation of 156 values of 10, 14, 19, 16 vocality of 7, 20, 21, 185 Welsh 12 see also exhibitions, Hilton of Cadboll, jewellery replication 3, 7–11, 14, 15, 175 and authenticity 9–11 as substitute for original 1 attributing new meanings to original 20 change in attitudes to 14 definition of 8 East Asian value of 184 in museums 14, 16 Iona as place of 18, 29

index p208-223.indd 216

multiple 16 nineteenth-century 16 of Celtic jewellery 17 of paintings 7 role of 3 resurrection 67, 68, 69, 81, 135, 146 of St John’s Cross 82 retreats 39, 44 Rhind lecture series 94 Richardson, James S. 54, 58, 103, 107, 108, 114, 192 Ritchie, Alec (Alexander) 54, 62, 86, 88, 89, 92, 106, 109, 153, 181, 187, 188 Ritchie, Euphemia 17, 60, 181 road, to Columba’s Shine 71, 151, 151 Street of the Dead 72 Robertson, Norman 22, 58, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112–13, 114, 122, 132, 134, 188, 192, 193 Robert the Bruce equestrian figure, Bannockburn 107 Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (rcahms) 22, 35, 39, 47, 48, 52, 68, 72, 73, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 93, 94, 115, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 152 Iona Inventory, Argyll Volume 4 (1982) 115, 139, 140, 144 recorded St John’s Cross fragments 86 Secretary 115 survey of Iona 24, 69, 139 survey of St John’s Cross cross-head mortices 146 Royal Scottish Museum Geology Department 189, 190 Rupertus Cross 80 Russell, family 120, 136 Russell, Major David Francis Ogilvy 21, 56, 59, 60, 99, 104, 105–6, 107, 108–110, 114, 115, 117, 120, 125, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 159, 188, 193, 192 Russell, Sir David 39, 40, 56, 58, 105, 136, 192 Russell Trust 105, 117, 133 Ruthwell Cross 20, 146

s St Adomnán 49, 68, 69, 71, 78, 151 Life of St Columba 49, 68 St Andrews Sarcophagus 73 Stations of the Cross procession 158 St Columba 18–19, 33, 41, 49, 67, 68, 78, 81, 82, 83, 86, 93, 97, 100, 101, 120, 134, 136, 152, 161, 172, 178, 189 150th anniversary of the death of 69 arrival on Iona 19 1450th anniversary of 149 burial place of see also St Columba’s Shrine enshrinement of relics of 69, 84–5 exiled from Ireland 19 monastery of 59 pacifism of 158 relics of 69, 73, 84, 85

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Index 217 saint’s day of 78 writing cell of 36, 71, 161 St Columba’s Shrine 2, 22, 67, 69–71, 72, 72, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 93, 97, 100, 136, 151, 152, 160, 161, 162, 163, 172, 178, 189 St Cuthbert 69 St John’s Cross 23, 36, 36, 51, 53, 57, 67, 74–7, 87, 96, 139–53, 147, 148, 175, 187 antiquarian rebirth of 67 aura 67 base 22, 23, 36, 71, 76, 77, 81, 85, 92, 97, 99, 120, 125, 125, 130, 132, 137, 142, 143, 187 originality of 121 filled with concrete 89 foundation stones 67, 73 lid 82 biography 24, 28, 33, 30–1, 46, 86, 168 biography, composite 166 brackets, external 144 casts, plaster (1922) 190 cross-head (1901, 1905) 188 Mancini’s master model (1969) 23, 112–13, 113, 188–9 fibreglass copies of 189 Mancini’s plaster pattern (1968) 188 undated cross-head and shaft 188 complexity of 67 conservation of 25, 160 copies of 22, 67 crosses on marble blocks 96 pendants 92, 96 copper dowels 86 cost of works 146 cross-head 85, 89, 90–1, 94, 143, 146 boss, east face central 79, 140–1, 144, 187 disc, east face central 88, 112 insets 92 cross arms 77–8, 82, 85, 112, 137, 140, 141, 143, 144, 146 curation of 92 design of 112 digital model of 10, 23, 26, 80, 81, 144, 152, 158, 187, 189 engagement with 26 equated with True Cross 81 erection of 67 excavations of, archaeological 120–1, 121, 130 experience of 160 fall of, eighth-century 67, 73, 81, 82, 85, 142 fall of (1951) 21, 68, 86, 97, 98, 99, 100 fall of (1957) 21, 57, 67, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 106, 116, 145 finial 77, 80, 82, 92, 100, 113, 122 ‘apex-stone’ 88, 89

index p208-223.indd 217

fractures, number of 144 fragility of 149 fragmentation of 21, 67, 82, 86 glass design based on 116 ‘glass-envelope’ 146 iconic status of 139 iconography of 22 in Iona Abbey Museum 22, 163 interlace 188 jewelled panels fixed to 67 makers of 168 materiality of 79, 144 metal in bars, delta 100 dowels, delta 100, 144 inserts on west face 79 as metaphor for renewal of Iona 168 mortices 73, 78, 82, 81, 88, 140, 141, 143 painted 78 performance of 78, 81 Pictish influences 140 police escort for 149 prostheses 144 quarried stone for 73 reconstruction of 21, 86, 88, 89, 112 (1927) 67 (1954) 21, 68, 143 (1990) 85 rededication of 149 relics in 81, 82 remaking of 67 removal from Iona of 21 replication of 92 multiple 16 restoration of (1954–5) 21, 68, 99, 100, 108, 112, 120, 136, 143, 144, 162, 194 resurrection of 82 returned to Iona 22, 159 film of (1990) 25 ring 73, 77, 78, 81, 88, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 187 reconstructed 86, 89, 141 symbolism of 82 shadow of 67, 79 shaft 21, 78, 82, 82, 83, 85, 89, 93, 95, 102, 108, 120, 187 basal 77 lower (‘the stump’) 88, 143, 145, 132 upper 88, 143 significance of aesthetic 152 archaeological 67, 92 architectural 92 art-historical 67, 145 historical 92, 145, 152

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218 My life as a replica scientific 152 spiritual 139 snake-and-boss ornament 80, 81, 89, 140 socket-stones 23, 77, 120, 121, 143, 183, 187 tangible aspects of 171 technical conservation of 21 technology 136 tenons 73, 77, 78, 89, 100, 140, 141, 143, 144 texture 120 True Cross, as replica of 16, 152 values of 86, 139 vocality of 78, 79, 96 wooden models of 17 wounds of 82 St John’s Cross replica (1970) xx, 9, 32, 66, 72, 80, 103, 161, 166, 177, 182 arrival in Iona 162, 167 as continuity of St John’s Cross 165 as proxy for St John’s Cross 159, 160 association with St Martin’s Cross 161 as St John’s Cross 153 aura 163 authenticity of 25, 111, 136, 153, 155–68, 174, 184 awards 159, 185, 193 Cement and Concrete Association (1971) 135 Certificate of Excellence (2000/2001) 25, 135 casts, concrete 110, 115, 117, 123 colour 120, 122, 133 cross-head 122 finial 113, 122, 124 foundation stone 122, 124 hand-finishing of 120, 124 mix of 122, 124 shaft 122 texture 120, 122, 133, 136 casts, plaster 110, 111, fibreglass copies of 23, 111, 115, 123, 190 Mancini’s master model 23, 111, 112, 113, 113, 114, 115, 122, 133, 136, 141, 188, 190, 193 cement 189 children’s perceptions of 26 colour 124, 136 conception of 105 construction of 25 contemporary significance of 155–68 costs 106, 110, 117, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137 craft of 168 crispness 164 cross-head 67, 81, 127, 155 nickel steel reinforcing bars 122 dedication of 105, 126, 134–5 design of 22, 118–19 double roman joint 113

index p208-223.indd 218

engagement with 26 erection of 120–1, 125–31, 127, 128, 129, 134, 136, 168 film of 24 experience of seeing in situ 163 fibreglass model/replica 110, 113 fiftieth anniversary of 28 former, clay and fibrous plaster 122 foundations, concrete 125, 130 fundraising 56, 58, 59, 97, 106 further replicas of 133 future conservation of 180 geology 136 intangible heritage of 174 listed at Category A 185 location of 22 makers of 144 see also Borthwick, Lawrie, Mancini, Scott (John R.) materiality of 20, 155, 156, 163, 165, 168, 176, 180 mock-up replica photograph 112 motivation for creation 46 moulds, gelatine 123 duplicate casts from 124 of master model 110, 111, 117, 119, 120, 122, 136, 188 nickel-steel supports 117, 124 phenomenological experience of 172 photogrammetric model of 26 plaster pattern 112, 114, 188 production of 24, 187–90 pyramid base for 121, 125 ring 112 scaffolding tower 130, 131, 152, 168, 128 seam 164 second casting of 110, 124, 133, 135, 136, 137, 189 shadow 161–2, 162, 163 136, 161, 178 shaft 67, 124, 127 shellac 122 tangible aspects of 171 time capsule 126 values of 25, 117, 153, 155–68, 174 St Martin of Tour 97 St Martin’s Cross 9, 17, 35, 36, 50, 51, 71, 72, 72, 73, 81, 82, 88, 89, 92, 94, 97, 121, 143, 153, 158, 159, 159, 160, 161, 161 St Mary’s Cathedral see Iona Abbey Church (St Mary’s) St Matthew’s Cross 9, 32, 35, 36, 36, 51, 71, 83, 86, 121, 161, 161 St Oran’s Chapel 36, 40, 42, 44, 52, 53, 54, 63, 71, 88, 92 St Oran’s Cross 36, 71, 72, 73, 81, 89, 143 St Ronan’s Bay 35 St Ronan’s Church 54, 59, 63, 140, 145, 190 salvation 67, 69, 78, 81 scaffolding 67, 130, 131, 152, 168 Scott, Ian G. 28, 79, 86, 115, 139, 140, 141, 144, 188, 189, 193

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Index 219 Scott, Jack 190 Scott, John R. 114, 115–16, 117, 118–19, 120, 121, 122, 125, 130, 131–2, 133, 134, 135, 137, 140–1, 152, 166, 189–90, 192, 193 Scottish Conservation Partnership 146 Scottish Development Department (sdd) 145, 146 Scottish Episcopal Church 39 Scottish Ministers 180 scribes, early medieval 19, 69 sculptors 86 early medieval 73 Grove, Barry 159 Holmes and Jackson Ltd 86, 190 Lipschitz, Jacques 103 Lorimer, Hew 109, 192 medieval, West Highland School 181 Pictish 144 Scott, Ian G. 144 sculptured stones biographies of 3 conservation of 3 Insular 12 metaphoric power of 3 protection of 3 status of 3 symbolic power of 3 vocalisation of 2 see also carved stones of Iona, Hilton of Cadboll, Nigg, Shandwick, Sueno’s Stone Shandwick, Easter Ross, Highland 28 shellac 100, 188, 189, 190 see also St John’s Cross replica shrines, composite 77 shrine-chapel of St Columba see St Columba’s Shrine silver copies of Iona crosses 18, 92, 106, 109, 18 Simpson, W. Douglas 47, 54, 106, 188 Skinner, Reverend John 49, 50–1, 93 smell, sense of 165 Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 52, 58, 134 Anniversary Meeting (1975) 141 souvenirs 7, 92, 111 specialness of carved stones 60 of Iona, global 60, 97, 135 of Reilig Odhráin 62 Staffa, island of 33, 49, 50, 50, 51 Stevenson, R. B. K. 35, 56, 73, 82, 107, 108, 109, 110, 114, 115, 120, 121, 122, 140, 143, 188, 190, 192 Stirling Castle Great Hall and Royal Palace 114 Superintendant of Works 100 Stirling, University of 26 stonemasons 4, 101, 131, 181 early medieval 69

index p208-223.indd 219

Iona Community 100 from Mull 52 Pictish 73 replication of skills 136 thirteenth-century 1 stories 168, 174, 176, 178 acquisition of 184 antiquarian 49 evocation of 172 hidden 139, 175 institutional 139 new, of Iona 2 of Hilton of Cadboll cross-slab 3 of Iona 46, 60 of replicas 1, 15, 183–5, 176 of St John’s Cross 139, 152 of St Martin’s Cross 32, 158 religious 158 researcher 139 visitor 44 see also biographies, storytelling storytelling 160 potential of St John’s Cross replica for 181 Street of the Dead 72 structural engineers Harley Haddow 146 Institution of Structural Engineers Scottish Branch Services 135 see also Murdoch MacKenzie Construction Ltd Sueno’s Stone 146 superstition 49

t Tarbat see Portmahomack taste, sense of 165 terra incognita 48 textiles, early medieval 68, 82 The Dream of the Rood 20, 79 The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland (1903) 13 The Fallen Cross (1958) 68, 98, 98, 99, 106, 107, 109, 134 timber buildings, early medieval 71, 73, 120 Tòrr an Aba 36, 71, 79, 80, 84, 85, 161, 161 totem poles, in Fiji 56 totems 56, 60 touch, sense of 82, 119, 163, 165, 182, 183 tour guides, 38, 43, 88, 168 tourism 33, 48 ethnographic research on 28 scholarship 9 tourists see visitors tours 22, 38, 43, 44, 49, 160 travellers, early 24, 33, 48–53, 92 Banks, Joseph 49

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220 My life as a replica Boswell, James 49, 92 Pennant, Thomas 49 Scott, Sir Walter 48, 52 Walker, J. 83 see also antiquarians, clach-bràth True Cross 16, 81, 82, 152 Trustees Savings Bank (tsb) Foundation 146 Tullis Russell and Co. Ltd 105, 188, 193

u United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (unesco) World Heritage Convention 8, 53 United States of America 135, 175, 190 interviewees from 158, 160, 162, 163, 172 market for replicas or miniatures in 19, 110, 135–6 Ronald Reagan, President of 146 universities, Scottish, Divinity students from 39 University College Dublin 86 University of Edinburgh 122, 190 University of Glasgow 86, 132–3 University of St Andrews Special Collections 99

v V&A see Victoria and Albert Museum vallum monasterii (enclosing earthworks) 59, 71, 151, 161 value age-value 164, 165, 183 contemporary attitudes to 175 generation of 181 global 171 informing of 10 in reconstruction projects 112 mutual reproduction of 10 of Iona’s monuments 54 of Reilig Odhráin stones 62 of replicas 7, 10, 16, 178 production of 184 rethinking 172–3 social 177–9 traditional approaches to 184 understandings of 171 values 139 aesthetic 171, 178 and authenticity 11 and understanding 11 competing 2 construction of 105 discomfort in 178 historic 105, 171, 178 intangible 1, 11, 174 negotiation of 105 of multiple communities 105

index p208-223.indd 220

recognising 171 scholarly 105 scientific 178 social 105, 171, 178 spiritual 139, 171, 178 tangible 1, 139, 174 see also St John’s Cross, St John’s Cross replica Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) Cast Court Exhibition (2018) 11, 12, 13, 14, 114 video, The Journey Home (1991) 147–9 Viking raid 83 Virgin and Child 72, 80, 81 visitors 10, 17, 25, 33, 35, 38, 42, 43, 45, 49, 59, 68, 81, 89, 92, 93, 94, 96, 98, 100, 114, 120, 126, 133, 134, 149, 152, 153, 156, 161, 163, 175, 181, 182, 195 behaviour of 62 Catholic 158–9 day 25, 38, 43, 49, 174 eighteenth-century 48 engagement of 9, 178 expectations of 60 experiences of 9, 68, 178 families 25, 43 importance of stories to 46 long-stay 38–9, 43 nineteenth-century 48–53 pilgrimages for 26 repeat 25, 38, 43 transgenerational 38, 43–4 visitorship 28 see also travellers Vowles, A. C. see Phillips

w war memorials 111 Iona 32, 37, 37, 42, 47 Ward Road Library, Dundee 13 weathering 107, 108, 162–3, 164, 176 see also patina West Highland School of carving 47, 181 Willow Tea Rooms, Glasgow 114 writer McCall Smith, Alexander 46 Scott, Sir Walter 48, 52 Wilde, Oscar 17 see also Ratcliffe wood carver 110 World Heritage Sites 9, 11, 184 worship, outdoors 161

y Yeoman, Peter 149 Young, J. 103 Young, Pauline I. 98, 192

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