Chapels

In around 1200, the cathedral’s eastern end was expanded to accommodate an enlarged choir. A lady chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary was also added.

Veneration of the Virgin was an important part of the devotions of Whithorn’s Premonstratensian Canons, who had settled in the priory in the late 1100s.

The southern end of the lady chapel was extended in the 1500s, probably to house Saint Ninian’s relics in a more spacious setting. This new southern chapel had two altars set against the eastern wall.


The eastern end of the cathedral which contained the high altar, was usually not open to ordinary people. Pilgrims came this way when they left the nave. They were probably directed along a side aisle to the lady chapel and the adjoining southern chapel. The choir stalls and high altar were screened off allowing the canons to continue their prayers uninterrupted.

The chapels probably housed relics of Saint Ninian. At the climax of their journey, pilgrims would have prayed for blessing and healing before the altars and the relics before descending to the crypt and to St Ninian’s tomb.



Although only the bare bones of these structures survive they are likely to have been beautifully decorated with gold and silver, and with fine stonework and statues.The furnishings included a portrait of Saint Ninian, which miraculously returned by itself to the chapel after being removed for safekeeping, and a silver ship gifted in 1441 by a grateful French traveller who had survived a storm at sea.