1949-51 excavations: in search of St Ninian

In 1949, the leading archaeologist C. A. Ralegh Radford began a series of excavations aimed at finding evidence of Ninian’s early Christian community.

He began work at the medieval Saint Ninian’s Chapel in the Isle of Whithorn, about 3 miles (5 km) south of Whithorn. This site had a long association with the saint, but no earlier buildings were found. Radford then turned his attention to Whithorn Priory and to the building found in the 1889 excavations.

At first, the remains of a cream mortar on the walls led him to believe this could be Ninian’s white church, as described by Bede.

He concluded, that it was an eighth century church that possibly held Ninian’s bones. The western end of the building had been destroyed during the construction of the cathedral.

This was probably one of a group of churches which stood together on the site, as can be still be seen at early Christian monasteries

• in Ireland like Glendalough and Cloinmacnoise and
• at St Andrews in Scotland.

The main body of a church called a nave of the medieval cathedral had been used as a burial place since 1822, when it ceased to be the parish church.

This restricted excavations, but Radford was able to discover that the nave’s medieval walls rested on the bedrock. Any earlier buildings on this site were either ruined or had been demolished.



Another discovery in the nave was a charnel pit - a large pit filled with human bones - which had been disturbed during later burials.



Radford made other discoveries that help us understand the medieval priory. He explored the remains of the possible lady chapel which had been identified by Galloway during the 1889 excavations and discovered it had originally been twice as big.

Other finds included foundations running to the north of the cloister, which could have been part of the priory infirmary.