The Oldest Living Thing in Whithorn

Viewing Whithorn in the Google satellite photograph, and in the aerial photograph below, the great domed canopy of the massive beech tree, that grows on the back dyke of the Old Town Hall, stands out.

This beautiful tree has been the climbing frame for many a Whithorn child who carved their initials, sometimes intertwined with their first love, high into its branches. It is difficult to age but perhaps the tree dates from the building of the replacement clock tower in the early 18th Century.

Certainly at that time the pursuit of tree planting was being enthusiastically undertaken in the surrounding countryside according to the report in the First Statistical Account Of Scotland, written 1791-1799. “The face of the country is improving daily, not only by the cultivation bestowed up the land, but by a passion for planting which shows itself among the landowners. From the subterraneous timbers, found in all the mosses, it appears that this peninsula had once been well clothed with Oaks, Firs, Etc. It was afterwards rendered perfectly bare, of every tree and shrub."

"About the year 1722, William Agnew late of Castlewigg, began to plant upon his estate, and may be considered as the father of this important species of this improvement in this neighborhood. His nephew Hugh Hathorne, Esq. Succeeded him, and planted with great spirit and success; so that now, every species of Oak, Ask, Beech, and Fir, are in great perfection in the forest; and these with single rows, verges and clumps, have a very happy effect upon the appearance of the country. The beeches upon this estate are of very large girth, and great height.”

Whithorn's Burgh Surveyed

In 2008 a Burgh Survey was undertaken by Historic Scotland. Working with them, Charles McKean suggested some features in the evolution of the Scottish town, quite distinct from English developments, and looked in particular at this evolution in Whithorn and Tain.

A royal burgh under the control of the prior of Whithorn, and he exerted considerable power as “Whithorn Priory was one of the largest in Scotland”, was erected in 1325. The original layout survives to this day. Whithorn is, “sheltered in a fold in the plateau of southern Galloway, not far from the tip of the peninsular, the town comprises an exceptionally elongated market place – over spacious and attenuated even by David 1st burgh standard. It is narrow at the top by the High or Isle Port Mouth, and at the northern end by Low Port Mouth”. These entry ports offered protection but there is no indication that the town was ever fortified or needed to be. Behind the buildings fronting the market place were long rigs ending in back dykes.

The survey concluded that this “strangely over-ambitious and potentially windswept market place”, that is now George Street, had once been divided, and functioned in three distinct ways. The elements which divided it have now been removed. The Ket Burn, which once flowed openly and was crossed by a timber bridge, has now been piped below street level.

To the south, in the centre of the street just opposite the Roman Catholic Church, once stood the tolbooth. General Roy’s map (above) of 1747 shows a large square building at this point in George Street,described by Bishop Pococke as a “market house….adorned with spire and turrets and prouded with bells”.

To the north, the space between the Ket Burn and the Low Port Mouth, was a sheltered space were travellers from the north would have arrived, indeed it once had at least 3 inns.

To the south, above the site of the tolbooth, the houses on the south-west side still retain there forelands. “The urban form of this section may be the result of this open space being used as a gathering point for pilgrims prior to their formal entry to the priory and the shrine of St. Ninian.”

“Between the Ket and the tolbooth was Whithorn’s principal ceremonial space.” It was once dominated by the mass of the priory with its tower that, “scaled up from the surviving ruins, was likely to be a minimum of forty metres high”, somewhat higher than the Old Town Hall steeple. This area was the town’s market place with the market cross, and the priory gatehouse. Another approach, by a road to the south (King’s Road) brought travellers arriving by sea at the town’s harbour at the Isle.

The survey concludes, “Whithorn is a re-occupied pilgrimage destination of high quality, whose forms and rigs survive with a certain quantity of ancient fabric embedded in re-edified properties. Yet the pilgrimage routes are neither clear nor fully open and since so little is made of the priory church, the ensemble makes little sense at present. The space dividers that used to shape George Street (the tollbooth and the Ket Burn) have been removed or disguised. There is, however, enormous charm in the way that the town folds into the country and its boundaries are still delineated by back dykes to the long rigs.”

Charles McKean proposes that, “with the enormous revival in Europe of pilgrimage to Santiago della Compostella extending as far north as Trondheim. By re-opening the pilgrimage route to the Isle, re-excavating the priory church and representing it so that its scale might again be appreciated, Whithorn could retrieve its part in that European-wide movement.”

The Gold Torque

The Gold Torque by Andrew McMormick, with wood-engravings by Agnes Miller Parker and a foreword by Philippa, Countess of Galloway, was publish by William MacLellan, Glasgow, in 1951.

The story of the Gold Toque follows the move from pagan to Christian beliefs by a tribe settled in the ancient Forest of Galloway.

Cairnsmore

Princess Efta, Prince Ruari, Saint Ninian and the Bridal Stane

The author, Andrew McCormick was the Provost of Newton Stewart and a local solicitor. He recorded many aspects of gypsy life in Galloway and for part of his life lived and wrote in a hut in the woods at Minnigaff where much of the Gold Torque is set.

The Discerning Squirrels

The illustrator, Agnes Miller Parker (1895-1980), was born in Irvine and educated at the Glasgow School of Art. She dedicated her career to book illustration and printmaking, becoming one of Britain's foremost wood engravers. Parker married a fellow student from Glasgow, William McCance the Scottish painter and sculptor in 1918. Working for a time with the Gregynog Press and living in England for most of her life, she returned in the 1950’s to Lamlash. Many of Parker's personal papers, including letters, sketches and proofs for illustrations, are held today by the Manuscripts Division of the National Library of Scotland.

The Pigot and Slater Commercial Directories of Whithorn

The 19th Century Commercial Directories of Pigot and Slater provide an unrivalled economic and social snapshot of Scottish communities.

Here are three entries for Whithorn that list the trades and professions of the town. The first is from Pigot & Co's National Commercial Directory of the Whole of Scotland of 1825.

Below, taken from Pigot & Co's Directory of 1837.

Finally, from Slater's Directory of 1852.

The illustrations are from An Alphabet by William Nicholson, 1898.

Whithorn Manse

Whithorn Manse

I knew it as Eden,

that lost walled garden,

past the green edge

of priory and village;

and, bejond it, the house,

whithdrawn, white,

one window alight.

Returning, I wonder,

idly, uneasily,

what eyes from inside

look out now, not in,

as once mine did,

and what might grant me

a right of entry?

Is it never dead, then,

that need of an Eden?

Even this evening,

estranged by age,

I ogle that light

with a child's greed,

wistfully claiming

lost perogatives

of homecoming.

Alastair Reid was born at the manse in Whithorn in 1926. Since World War Two he has lived in the United States, France, Spain, Greece, Switzerland and Central and Southern America.

He has published over twenty books – poetry, translations, collections of prose and books for children – and has himself been much translated. Since 1951, he has contributed to the New Yorker Magazine which, with his other work has established for him a worldwide reputation.

Whithorn Business Association sought funds to have a number of plaques sited in the town to record aspects of Whithorn's history and honour its more famous inhabitants. This plaque is on Bruce Street, the road to the Church, where his father was minister, and to the manse, Alastair Reid's first home.

On 7th October 1999, as part of National Poetry Day, the poem was published as a postcard.

The Saint Ninian Reliquary

The venerated bones of St Ninian were entombed in Whithorn Cathedral and over the centuries countless pilgrims travelled to see and touch them. In the early 1500’s, James IV ensured the safekeeping of the Saints’s arm bone by paying for a silver reliquary to be made for it. Following the Reformation this reliquary was taken to the Scots Seminary at Douai in France where it remained until the Revolution in 1789. From that date to the present day, all trace of the Saint’s historic arn relic appears to have been lost.

But another reliquary, which almost certainly is from Whithorn, survives.

This gold reliquary was purchased by the British Museum in 1946. Its lettering and design date it from the last quarter of the 12th Century. It is only 5cm in diameter and is 3cm deep. The front has three small fragments from the True Cross surrounded by sea pearls and covered with a domed block of crystal, acting as a magnifying glass. The reverse was covered by a gold disc with small settings intended to hold relics. On the edging band is an inscription listing the Saints whose fragments of bone are carried in the settings.

SE XPSTI – NINIANI – ANDRE EX MAURIS – GEORGII – MERG’ – D’NOR’ – FERG’ – BO NEF – SE MARIE

The list begins with the True Cross and ends with the Virgin Mary, giving Christ and His Mother the place of honour. The second place on the list is held by St Ninian indicating that the reliquary was made for a church connected with the Saint. This is reinforced by the inclusion of Saint Norbet (D’NOR), the founder of the Order of Premonstratension canons. Whithorn was the most important centre in Scotland of this Order. St Fergus was a Pictish Bishop of the 8th century and this would point to the rebuilding of Whithorn Cathedral by Fergus, Lord of Galloway, who may have commissioned the reliquary and would have wished to see a relic of the Saint, whose name he bore, included. The other saints listed are St George, St Margaret and St Boniface.

The reliquary has recently gone on show in the new Medieval Room in the British Museum. Such a magnificent reliquary should be returned, even briefly, to its home and loaned to the Whithorn Trust for exhibition.