St Ninian Priory Church, Whithorn
St Ninian Priory Church, Whithorn
St Ninian’s Priory Church on Bruce Street, Whithorn, is a Category B Church of Scotland hall church of 1822 on the site of the medieval priory precinct, the traditional cradle of Scottish Christianity.
- Location
- Whithorn, Dumfries & Galloway
- Country
- Scotland
- County
- Dumfries & Galloway
- City / town
- Whithorn
- Address
- Bruce Street, Whithorn, Dumfries & Galloway, DG8 8PY
- Postcode
- DG8 8PY
- Built
- 1822; tower mid-19th century; porch 1914
- Architect
- Peter MacGregor Chalmers (porch and fittings, 1914–15)
- Denomination
- Church of Scotland
- Dedication
- Ninian
- Grade
- Category B
- Style
- Hall church
- Materials
- White-harled masonry incorporating medieval priory stone
- Grid reference
- NX 444 403
- Opening hours
- Church open daily 8am to 5pm.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas
Overview
St Ninian’s Candida Casa is associated with the fifth-century mission that predates Iona. Premonstratensian canons later served a cathedral-priory whose ruins and crypts are a scheduled monument. The present white-harled rectangular church of 1822 occupies the east cloister range and incorporates masonry from the medieval dormitory. A square tower was added in the mid-nineteenth century; Peter MacGregor Chalmers added porches in 1914 and a communion table and carved oak pulpit in revived seventeenth-century style in 1915. Alexander Kerr’s windows of St Ninian and the Good Shepherd flank the pulpit. A three-sided gallery and a memorial to the Revd Christopher Nicholson (minister for fifty-six years, d. 1867) furnish the interior. The church is a hub on the St Ninian pilgrim route.