St Mary's Church
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
The ruins of St Mary's Church , one of Bressay's three medieval churches, can be seen in the Kirkyard on the east side of the Voe of Cullingsburgh. (The two other ancient churches were St Ola's Church at Gunnista, and St John's Chapel at Kirkabister, near where the Bressay Lighthouse now is located)
Only low walls and one gable remains of St Mary's Church, the plan is cross shaped, but some parts could have been added in the 17th century.
The church was in use until the early parts of the 18th century.
Inside the church, there are memorials from the 17th century. One of them, dated 27th of August 1636, has an incription in Dutch to Claes Jonson Buyn of Dungerdam - captain of a Ductch East Indiaman. Another is commemorating "ane vertuous & discreit gentlewoman" Agnes Gifford who died in 1628.
Around 1852, a labourer who was digging in the ground near the kirkyard, found what later has been named the Bressay Stone, a pictich christian cross slab, dating from the 8th or 9th century..
A replica of the stone was erected in the kirkyard in 2000 by the Shetland Churches Trust to celebrate the millennium.
The history of the kirkyard area goes even further back, because it is built on an iron age broch which is older than the stone. Remains of the broch is found in the north west side of the kirkyard.
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