Southtown (Burray), St Lawrence Church

The NMRS record for the site describes the present roofless kirk, which was built in 1621 at about the same time as the nearby Bow of Burray was rebuilt. St. Lawrence was patron saint of both Burray and South Ronaldsay, ecclesiastically the two were governed from Burray. According to the chairman of the Bu Sands planning commitee the original church was on the site of a Viking estate. The South Isles coastal survey had to miss out this area, though the principal broch profiles are readily observable without entering the field behind the kirk – my friend David Lynn, a broch expert, having seen some of my images agrees with my assessment (full confirmation pending some future visit alongside known suspects Kyelittle and Hillock of Fea).