Having stopped at Sandhead and revisited my plans, I asked my folks to drive with me on a trip to visit the sights associated with St Ninian around Whithorn.
Originally this was to have been a three day cycle journey, beginning and ending at Stranraer. By using the car as a tool for travelling between the sites, it became a (fairly full) single afternoon and evening.
We began by driving around the coast from Sandhead. Large parts of the coastland and sea offshore there are restricted access, designated as a danger zone because they are used by the Ministry of Defence as rifle shooting and bombing ranges. The upshot is that as you move around the curve of the shore from the peninsula of the Rhins of Galloway to The Machars, the campervans and campsites and houses on the shore tail off, leaving a wilder landscape with just the occasional MoD installation.
The shore returns to human usage from just before Glenluce, with the almost mandatory (in Scotland anyway) links golf course.
On our way, we passed what seemed to be a bizarre confluence of nature and human activity: a shrike larder using a man-made fence. The shrike, also known as the butcherbird, is a small carnivorous bird; their main prey is insects, frogs, and rodents up to and even slightly larger than its own size. These larger prey it famously stores for food, impaled on large thorny bushes, and the remains are subsequently left exposed, possibly as a territorial marker.
In this case, in lieu of a thorny bush, a shrike had made use of a barbed wire fence. The larder was incredibly large, and (thanks to the spacing of the barbs on the wire) regularly spaced. It looks like something a person had done, but the habit of the prey corpses being impaled through their necks is exactly how the shrike behaves.
This fascinating but grizzly site passed, we turned south along the coast and made our way to the car park just northeast of Port Castle Bay, the home of St Ninian’s Cave. The cave is fairly substantial but unsafe due to do the fragile nature of the cliffs it is part of; frequent falling rocks have led the local authorities to place barriers on the approach to the cave itself, but close enough that visitors can still view the cave entrance from safety.
Tradition has it that Ninian, whose identity is not certain and may in fact be one of the Finians who are known in Scottish and Irish Christian history, was the first evangelist and bishop to the southern Picts of what is now Scotland in the late fourth century. The Venerable Bede, that eighth century source of so much of what we know of the early church in Britain, takes pains to note that Ninian is known from tradition, rather than documentary evidence. Whatever the veracity of the person Ninian, the presence of an early religious community at Whithorn is very real, and is the birthplace of Scottish Christianity.
St Ninian’s Cave is said to have been a place of retreat for the saint, who is thought to have been a Briton, educated in Rome before returning to these shores to establish the missionary see at Whithorn. It became a place of pilgrimage which is still active to the day. Surrounding the approach to the cave are numerous balanced pebble cairns; whether created to mark the place or simply as artistic expression I couldn’t say.
The walk to the cave is popular, with local landowners maintaining a decent car park (with an honest box suggesting a £1 payment per car) and good, wide pathways between fields, through forest, and along the side of a burn down to the pebble beach shore.
It’s a very pleasant walk of about a mile to the shore, and the forest section in particular is beautiful, planted with all kinds of trees including sweet chestnut and eucalyptus, as well as cultivater and wild rhododendrons, and a very impressive Gunnera (above).
On reaching the shore, turn right along the pebble beach for about half a mile to reach the cave. The beach is harder going than the forest path, but I found it easier than the pebble beaches I had traversed on the Rhins of Galloway the previous couple of days (although this was perhaps because I was not carrying my pack!). The pebbles themselves were varied and beautiful, and I even found one that looked like it had been marked up for a game of noughts and crosses! I couldn’t resist setting it up for a photo, and I wonder if it will be spotted by any other visitors.
Having retraced our steps to the carpark, we continued around the headland to the Isle of Whithorn, a small fishing community sheltered from the prevailing winds behind Burrow Head. When coming to visit the Isle (which is in fact a promontory) don’t be daunted by the narrowing streets and harbour parking: keep on going through and you’ll come to some lovely free parking provided by the community for visitors. Motorhomes are even welcome (and encouraged) to park up for the night, and there is a free and well maintained little public toilet.
St Ninian’s Chapel on the Isle of Whithorn isn’t the most prominent feature, with that distinction going to the Isle of Whithorn Tower, a short, solid, whitewashed building that serves as a navigational aid thanks to its location. From the tower on a good day you can clearly see the southern Scotland mainland, the hills of the Lake District, and the Isle of Man.
The Chapel itself is a ruin, tidied up in the late nineteenth century, of a twelfth century replacement of an earlier building. There is no roof, but the walls are surprisingly sturdy. Inside there are recesses where one would expect to find credence and lavabo near the (liturgically) east end of the building. The great window at that end also has a spectacular view over the sea.
After spending some time exploring the beautiful views and gentle, calming grassy pathways of the headland, I returned to the car and we set out north for Whithorn itself.
The priory at Whithorn was a substantial site. As you approach it, you come across a ruined but intact building set at about ninety degrees to the present church, and there is a helpful interpretation board showing how these two buildings form sides of what had been the priory’s cloisters. Behind you as you read the board are the footings of more buildings.
(The board itself makes the slightly exaggerated claim Whithorn as the ‘Cradle of Christianity, but presumably they meant the ‘in Scotland’ part to be assumed!)
By the time we reached Whithorn itself, the visitor museum ‘The Whithorn Story’ was shut for the day. The archeology is fascinating, and I highly recommend a visit, but I found the visit to the Isle of Whithorn was the most spiritually connected experience of the day for me. This may have been because it was the time where I went off by myself for the first time after having been rescued from my state of anxiety and exhaustion, and after relaxing and making that mini-pilgrimage to the cave. By the time I was at the Isle I was ready to spend a little time strolling and taking in the sights and the place without feeling any pressure to get somewhere. Brief as my time there was, the grass felt softer, the air freer, the sun gentler, and my heart lighter.
We headed back north to my brother’s house in Troon, and that’s where I’ve been for the last couple of days, being gentle with myself, walking or cycling a little each day, and preparing to resume my pilgrimage from Sandhead with a lighter pack tomorrow.
Comments