Plaster casts of boat carved in East Wemyss’ cave returned after 90 years

The two items have been transferred from the Royal Museum Greenwich Collections Unit, Greenwich to East Wemyss, and one will shortly go on display at its newly refurbished museum and visitor centre.

Pam Cranston, curator of collections, said: “We are thrilled that the casts came full circle back after a 90-year journey. We know from experience, having had on loan a cast of a Bronze Age cup and ring carving from the Michael Cave prior infilling in 1926, that people love having access to historic copies of such unique carvings.

“The casts will also enable visitors presently unable to access the cave site to appreciate the boat carving up close at full scale.”

Experts believe the boat was probably carved in the first millennium AD and could be the earliest depiction of a boat in Scotland. The casts also commemorate an interesting scheme to make the carving known to a nationwide audience through the collaboration of three remarkable antiquarians:

George Deas was a local architect and member of the Society Antiquaries of Scotland, and an ardent advocate of the caves and carvings. Harold Brindley was a zoologist and nautical archaeologist,a member of the Society of Antiquaries of Cambridge, founding member of the Navy Records Society and Society for Nautical Research, and Sir Geoffrey Callender was an antiquarian, secretary, and treasurer to the Society of Nautical Research, and Professor of History at Dartmouth Royal Naval College and Royal Naval College, He led the campaign to save HMS Victory for the nation.

Brindley first viewed the boat carving in 1927. In 1934 he and Deas arranged for a paper mould to be made in situ from wet blotting paper supported in a wooden frame.

From this, two plaster casts were made and sent directly to London on the ‘Royal Scot’ train - arriving still damp on - and one went to directly to Callender for display at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, labelled “cast of incised tenoared skeith in Jonathon’s Cave, East Wemyss, Fifeshire.”

Deas was also a man ahead of his time. In 1948 he proposed a local museum dedicated to the caves featuring casts and photographs of the carvings. His vision of a museum dedicated to showcasing and helping preserve the unique heritage of the caves was not fully realised until the opening of SWACS’ Museum and Visitor Centre in 2017.