A pilgrim’s journey: on the road

A pilgrim’s journey was usually made on foot and often over long distances.

In the summer of 1508, King James IV met a group of pilgrims bound to Whithorn from Tain, a burgh located in the Highland area of Scotland.

Today, such journey would take several hours by car. In the 1500s, without good roads and on foot, the journey would have been truly exhausting.

Though pilgrimage was difficult, tiring and lengthy, an infrastructure existed to help pilgrims.

Monasteries provided food and shelter, while inns and other hostelries offered respite.

Pilgrims would also meet up at well-known assembly points such as the pre-historic standing stones at Laggangairn and a bridge over the River Bladnoch.




Pilgrims from the Isle of Man, Ireland and England travelled by sea to the Galloway coast arriving at the main port of the burgh, Isle of Whithorn, and other ports including Mochrum.

They gave thanks for their safe arrival at Chapel Finian in Mochrum and Saint Ninian’s Chapel in the Isle of Whithorn.



Arrival in a foreign country must have been an added concern for English and Manx pilgrims. Guarantees of safe conduct issued by the Scots permitted them access to shrines like Whithorn, but only if they complied by certain rules.

In 1427, James I granted safe passage to pilgrims and specified that they

• were to arrive and leave by land or sea via the same route
• had no more than 15 days to complete their journey
• had to openly wear special badges known as signacula – to be shown when they arrived and on their journey home.