Iona is so historically and culturally important and venerated as a place of pilgrimage, that it attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year. It is said to be one of the best known but least understood historic sites in Scotland.

lona: a guide to the monuments is a lavishly illustrated guide which outlines the island's history from St Columba's day to present times. It explains the development of the sacred sites and historic buildings through the tangible remains as they are seen by visitors today.

The Introduction covers the historical background: the founding of the first monastery by Colum Cille or Columba, the foundation of the Benedictine abbey at the turn of the 12th/13th centuries, the erstwhile support of the Lords of the Isles, the 1560 Reformation, the establishment of the Abbey Church as the cathedral of the Isles in the 1630s, the church's collapse and its subsequent fall into ruins, its repair and its resurrection, firstly in the 19th century, and then with the foundation of the Iona Community in 1938.

The bulk of this booklet takes the form of an 'island tour'. One is gently guided from the landing jetty up to the Abbey, stopping en route at the Nunnery, St Ronan's Church, MacLean's Cross, the Parish Church and Manse, St Oran's Chapel and Reilig Odhrain, Torr an Aba and the High Crosses. Each site visited is described and interpreted, filling in the details and giving the historical background to remains which are, at times, scanty. St John's Cross, which ended up in 50 bits after its 1927 reassembled form was blown down and injured by gales in 1951 and 1957, was returned to Iona in 1990 after extensive repairs in Edinburgh - a concrete replica had been fitted into the original cross-base in 1970. The repaired original is now splendidly displayed in the Abbey Museum, safe from the gale-force winds that can sweep the island. This was clearly the best action to take at the time to preserve this important cross - a replica in the original location and the real thing placed in a lapidarium less than 100 metres away - some of our endangered Pictish stones might benefit from a similar approach if the experts deem it the best currently available way to preserve them. The 'National Committee on Carved Stones in Scotland' will hopefully be able to guide us on this delicate problem in future.

Few day visitors probably go past the Abbey, but should they do, the sites of Cladh an Disirt, Lochan Mor, lomaire Tochair, Cobhan Cuilteach, Dun Cul Bhuirg, the marble quarry and St Columba's Bay are all described.

This current guide is, in fact, a revised edition of the earlier popular guide lona (HMSO 1983) to take account of recent discoveries and changes. These include not only the return of St John's Cross (see above) but also the excavations of St Ronan's church in 1992 which showed that it was built on the site of a very small earlier Early Christian chapel whose clay-mortared S and E walls were incorporated into the foundations of the medieval building. This Early Christian chapel had in turn been built over earlier graves.

Generally, the revised edition is much improved, particularly in its illustrations. One minor niggle is that the maps are not so well displayed. Although the one of the whole island is now a rather good satellite photograph placed inside the front cover, for the detailed map of the village/Abbey area one now has to look inside the back cover (without being directed there) and this map has been much reduced in size, and it is no longer on a fold-out flap -- a particularly useful bookmark as one strode round the sites.

This guide-book really is excellent for the interested day visitor to Iona -- indeed essential as one would miss so much without it. For more detailed information the reader is, in any case, directed to Argyll 4, the RCAHMS inventory of the island (HMSO, 1982). Given the intended readership it may have been helpful to include a glossary of terms. Most readers may know about 'string-courses' and 'dog-teeth', but 'cusped ogival arches' (p.ll) or even the mere term 'clearstorey' (sic) may not be in the general vocabulary of all tourists!

This book is good value and thoroughly recommended to anyone visiting Iona.

J.R.F. Burt