We’re just home from a short stay in Wigtown in ‘The Machars’ in the west of the south of Scotland. I’m pleased that we’d arranged some accommodation and were able to spend time just looking round and taking in the atmosphere because it’s a strangely remote point of land which gives you a feeling of being disjointed from the rest of Scotland or even from the rest of the world. We were at the Book Festival meeting authors and buying books. Maybe it was through listening to Roddy Martine speaking about the book he has just written entitled – Hunted Scotland – that I experienced the strange isolation of the area. Then again maybe it is just auto suggestion! The scenery is richly green just now and with the stormy rain and striking mountainous backdrop we had some glowery sky above us at times! We drove to Whithorn the birthplace of Scottish Christianity and the site of the earliest Christian Church founded here in in the early 5th century by the now sainted St. Ninian. The the identity of Ninian is in some doubt but the settlement he established there is extensive.
The ruins of St. Ninians Chapel - Whithorn
Scottish Ancestral Trail Blog 