St Ninian's Priory, museum, cave and chapel, Whithorn

Whithorn is blessed by paired pilgrim routes, St Ninian’s Way, which passes through, and the shorter Whithorn Way, which starts in Glasgow and ends here

Highlights

• Three sites and probable grave of St Ninian, Scotland’s first saint
• Roman-era Christian foundations
• Ruined priory
• Museum of early Christian carvings
• Pilgrim’s chapel by the sea
• St Ninian’s hermitage in coastal cave

Whithorn Priory is not merely the oldest church in Scotland, but dates back to the Roman Empire, the same regime that Jesus knew. It is also home to Scotland’s first recorded saint and bishop, and he still lies buried somewhere among the ruins of the priory church.

Just a decade after St Ninian founded this church in 397, the imperial army left Britain in a desperate attempt to shore up the defence of Rome. They never returned. Christian communities such as Whithorn found themselves cut off, Anglo-Saxon invaders filling the vacuum left by the Romans. Isolated from their spiritual base in southern Europe, their faith evolved into the Celtic tradition.

Whithorn feels surprisingly remote even today. Closer to Belfast than Glasgow, and further south than Durham, you have to make a special effort to reach the end of this peninsula. Thankfully, when you do get here, there is both a historical and a spiritual side to the welcome. Some Scottish holy places feel as if they are a museum only, but at Whithorn the Church of Scotland kirk keeps its doors open to visitors. Even better, it is actually within the walls of the former priory ruins.

The tourists’ welcome comes from the Whithorn Trust Visitor Centre, a joint enterprise between Scottish Heritage and the Whithorn Trust. Between them, they manage three sites in the centre of Whithorn, effectively making one large complex. These are the ruined priory, the stone carvings museum, and the visitor centre/exhibition.

The priory ruins are always open, but the visitor centre and museum are closed for half the year, so check before making a trip.

The visitor centre does an admirable job of presenting the history of St Ninian’s foundation. A crozier from 1175 takes pride of place in the exhibition – a gilded bishop’s crook finely decorated with enamel. Other artefacts illuminate the early history of Scotland’s first monastery.

The Scottish Heritage museum next door leaves no stone unturned, quite literally, in telling the story of the monastic community through its collection of carvings and inscriptions. Among the many wonders is the first Christian carving in Scotland, the Latinus Stone, which records a Christian grave from about 450.

The visitor’s centre also has a guide to the ruin of St Ninian’s Priory, which is just beyond the museum complex. This solid but now roofless stone church once housed the shrine of St Ninian. His remains probably still rest somewhere here. The earliest parts of the building date from the 12th century.

The priory is built on the site of St Ninian’s original church, his Candida Casa or ‘White House’. The Venerable Bede writes in his History (iii.4) that Whithorn is “famous for its stately church, it is now used by the English, and it is here that his body and those of many saints lie at rest.” Its name suggests that the building was either whitewashed or built from a white-coloured rock.

The exact location of the legendary Candida Casa is still under debate. There are rectangular foundations jutting out to the right of the modern crypt that could be the place. Or it could lie buried nearer the current priory ruin.

When I returned my guide to the visitor centre, one of the museum curators claimed that St Ninian might never have existed. Much as I admire the centre’s brilliant presentation of the history of the site, such doubt underlined the need for the church to play a role in Whithorn’s interpretation too. Perhaps some of the exhibition material could be placed in a church context; certainly none of the visitor information I looked at directed visitors towards the parish church building.

It would be hard for Bede and his sources to mistake the founder of Scotland’s church 300 years after he died. In today’s timeframe, that is the same as mistaking the founder of the Quakers. The carved stones are incontrovertible evidence of a Roman-influenced Christian community here, which matches Bede’s claim that it had Scotland’s first church. If George Fox founded the Quakers, then Bede is right about Whithorn.

Things may yet change here. The day I wrote this entry, it later transpired, the Scottish Parliament held a debate about raising the status of Whithorn as Scotland’s true cradle of Christianity, rather than Iona. The Moderator of the Church of Scotland was due to attend.

St Ninian’s Chapel

After visiting the priory and museum, the second point of call is the Isle of Whithorn, where a ruined chapel stands by the sea. The ‘isle’ is actually a peninsula, three miles south of Whithorn town. Pilgrims used to land here after a long and dangerous journey to visit St Ninian’s shrine. The ruin, built around the year 1300, now stands open to all.

St Ninian’s Cave

And finally we come to St Ninian’s Cave, a few miles along the coast. This feels like an alternative form of pilgrim chapel, sanctified more by nature than the formal church. Some stones on the beach have fine lines of white running through them, and it is possible to find pebbles with near-perfect crosses etched by natural process.

If you do come here to pray or sit in solitude by the sea, you won’t be the first: St Ninian himself regularly visited this cave when on retreat. Carved crosses from the 8th century were found buried here, and are displayed at the visitor centre back in Whithorn. There are also some crosses engraved on the seaward rockface leading up to the cave entrance.

The cave has the added attraction that it is still used by the church. A pilgrimage by the

Catholic diocese of Galloway visits here on the last Sunday of August. Pictures in the visitor centre show a service being held in front of the cave. Pilgrims come throughout the year, leaving their own crosses made from twigs. The cave is roughly the size of a small chapel, deep enough to shelter without feeling spooky. The exact opposite in fact: of all Whithorn’s sites, I found it hardest of all to drag myself away.

In my book The Naked Hermit I describe what happened when I spent an entire night here, lost in the timeless contemplation of authentic hermit vision. Suffice to say it was intense.

Directions

The Whithorn Story Visitor Centre, 45–47 George Street, Whithorn DG8 8NS

www.whithorn.com (Whithorn Trust visitor centre)

www.historicenvironment.scot (for the priory museum, search for Whithorn Priory)

whithorn-stninianspriory.org.uk (parish church)

W3W: micro.tricycle.octopus

GPS: 54.7332N 4.4157W

St Ninian’s Chapel, Harbour Row, Isle of Whithorn DG8 8lL

W3W: example.tenders.relies

GPS: 54.6980N 4.3607W

St Ninian’s Cave, car park at Kidsdale, near Whithorn DG8 8JU

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GPS: 54.6939N 4.4492W cave

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GPS: 54.7004N 4.4359W car park

The priory ruin, visitor centre and carvings museum are next to each other. The visitor centre and museum are open from 1 April (or Easter if earlier) until 31 October. The centre is on the main road through Whithorn, George Street (the A746), and the carvings museum is just behind

it on Bruce Street. The centre has a fine cafe and a museum shop. The church is next to the priory ruins, and is usually open.

For St Ninian’s Chapel, head to the end of the B7004, which wraps around the harbour in the Isle of Whithorn, and if driving park in the car park. The chapel is a couple of minutes’ walk from here towards the open sea, easy to spot and marked with signs.

For St Ninian’s Cave, drive south from Whithorn on the B7004, heading towards the Isle of Whithorn. Turn right after about a mile: the cave is signposted at this junction. Drive straight ahead, over a crossroads, and continue to the end where there is a car park. The footpath to the cave is well marked from here. When you get to the sea look right and you’ll see the cave at the far end of the bay. It takes about half an hour to walk from the car, easy to find but far enough to feel secluded.