To be a pilgrim was to accept a difficult and arduous challenge

In the medieval Christian world, it was strongly believed that pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint benefited the soul and resulted in miraculous cures. The pilgrimage journey had to be long, tiring and filled with hardship.

Why did people come to Whithorn?

Pilgrims came to Whithorn to honour the relics of Saint Ninian and seek cures and salvation.

About 200 years after the death of Ninian, a Latin poem described how lepers praying at his tomb were cured.

Such stories inspired people from Scotland and the lands around the Irish Sea to travel to Whithorn, making it one of Scotland’s most important shrines.

Do pilgrims still come?

Pilgrimage remained an important part of Whithorn until the Reformation in 1560, when the new faith rejected such practices, and was outlawed in 1591. In the late nineteenth century, the Third Marquess of Bute, a Roman Catholic convert, reinstated the traditional processions on Saint Ninian’s Day - 16 September.

The Catholic Diocese of Galloway holds a pilgrimage to Saint Ninian’s Cave on the last Sunday in August.