Whithorn Museum

Trip No.137  Entry No.13  Date Added: 29th Jun 2019
Site Type: Museum Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: Whithorn Visitor Centre, Museum, Priory and Roundhouse: I can honestly say that I have never felt so welcomed anywhere as being here as a visitor to Whithorn. From the moment we stepped into the Visitor Centre café for refreshments before buying our tickets, then looking around the round house, museum and priory, the staff were attentive, welcoming and made sure we were well looked after.

The café had good food at very reasonable prices, and the prices to get into the museum and priory were well below those we'd expected. A small guided tour had just started, but as we wanted to wander round on our own, we elected not to join. However, round at the museum, we learned that we were only able to get into the round house with a guide present, so we were very kindly let into the round house grounds to join the tour for ten minutes or so.

The interior of the round house was much, much bigger and far more practical than I'd ever imagined. The guide spoke with great knowledge about day-to-day living within this space and we had chance to look around the outside at the various tools and farming methods they were using.

We left to go and explore the museum and I was stunned to see the collection of over 60 early Christian stones displayed in this space. I had previously checked with the Whithorn Trust that is was OK to take photographs of the stones for my walk/photo journal, and was told this was OK if it was 'for personal use'. So armed with my camera, I double checked with the guide. The knowledge of the staff member (Ruaridh) and the time he took to talk to us was extraordinary.

After walking round the Priory and trying to recreate some of the photos in the guide book, we returned to the museum for another wander round, but it was closing at 5pm, so we needed to be swift. The one downside was that there was no guide book describing each of the stones, but I was allowed to use the Museum Interactive Display Screen, and to photograph the majority of the screens (a good job, as trying to find the stones on Canmore has proved a little tricky, as many of their entries don't have photographs).

We had time to go back to the Visitor Centre to buy some postcards, and I had my eye on an expensive reference book. With only a few moments to spare before closing, I decided not to buy it, but on getting home regretted my decision. On emailling the team the next day, they organised for me to buy the book, pay over the phone, and arranged for postage. Great customer service!

I also asked for, and received permission, to post a visit report and photographs to the Portal.

I just wish I'd had a whole day to spend here, and would love to return. 150/100 for visitor experience.

White Cairn (Crouse)

Trip No.137  Entry No.16  Date Added: 29th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: White Cairn, Crouse: Our very last stop of this visit, and not a hugely dramatic one. The cairn has been used for field clearance, and there were lumps of concrete, barbed wire and old fence posts dumped at its western side.

Whilst I was photographing the holed stone, I got an excited cry from Andrew, to say; “You can see through the holed stone from the cairn”, so I wandered through the gate between the two fields and walked onto the cairn. Yes, he was right – there was a glimmer of light through the hole, although what it was sighted on, I’m not sure.

Crow Stone (Wigtown)

Trip No.137  Entry No.15  Date Added: 29th Jun 2019
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Holed Stone/Crow Stone, Crouse: Coming to these last two sites marked the start of our return journey back to Northumberland, and I wasn’t really ready to go back! This stone stood near the northern edge of a field of grass, just east of the B7052, and south of the White Cairn at Crouse.

The field of grass had just been cut and the farmer and his various tractors and trailers were collecting the grass in the surrounding fields and transporting it back to Crouse farmhouse, just to the south and on the other side of the road. Because of all the traffic on the road, we dumped the car in a wide gated field entrance at NX 36446 55808, ready to run back to the car if we needed to move it. We got into the field with the holed stone through a gate at NX 36533 55647, walking NE towards it; it was further than it looked, having to step over the mounds of cut grass.

A very nice spot, with the Galloway Hills a dark blue/grey in the distance.

Little Balsmith

Trip No.137  Entry No.14  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: Little Balsmith/Stairfield Standing Stone: I was very reluctant to tear myself away from Whithorn Museum and Priory, but with it closing at 5pm, we didn’t really have a choice. I popped back into the visitor centre to buy some postcards, then we headed off down the street to buy an Italian Ice Cream, complete with chocolate flake – delicious!

This standing stone is not far out of Whithorn; take the road which heads east past the school, the B7063, and continue for 2.7km.

We had a very strange encounter driving towards the stone, as we came across a car parked across a farm entrance, with one man sprawled across the bonnet with his hands behind his head, the other was leaning up against the passenger side of the car. There was something really odd about this car – it was missing its rear driver side wheel! We waved at each other as we drove past – they didn’t flag us down and ask for help.

On the way back, another car had joined them and the men were talking animatedly. Wonder what had happened for them to lose the wheel.

The standing stone is in a flat plane here, with Wigtown Bay to the east. The road running past the stone continues to the Isle of Whithorn. Again, this stone is ‘a big boy’. Luckily the crop in the field had just been harvested, so I went in to get some photographs from all sides of the stone.

Culroy Cairn 1

Trip No.137  Entry No.10  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Culroy Cairn 1: On the way back from Culroy White Cairn, we had intended to stop and photograph another 4 cairns along this road, but the road was far to narrow to park on, and with large tractors and other traffic coming along, I hopped out of the car and photographed this cairn as best I could.

By this time of the afternoon, I was getting twitchy and impatient to get to Whithorn and the museum, with their fantastic collection of cross slabs, cross heads and other early Christian stones, so finding an entrance into the field was pretty low priority!

Culroy White Cairn

Trip No.138  Entry No.9  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Culroy White Cairn: The intention was to drive down this minor road, stopping to photograph three cairns to the south of the road on our way to Crouse. However, the road was very, very narrow with no marked passing places (just field entrances and the occasional driveway) and the stone walls were too tall to see over. All we could see in the end was one of these cairns and we could find no entrance/gate into the field, wo we contented ourselves with photographing the ones we could find.

We drove to where the minor road forks, just to the north west of a farm called Culroy. Taking the northern (left hand) fork, we parked on the short grass. This cairn is at the end of a quarried knoll, and not really obvious until you get up close to it, when the piles of white stones are clearly different from the quarried area around it.

We visited just after a period of dry weather; the ground in front of the cairn was covered in marsh grass, some areas still with small puddles, so wellies would be recommended after a rainy day or two (although you can always approach from the north if needed).

Mid Gleniron 1

Trip No.137  Entry No.8  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Chambered Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 3

Log Text: Mid Gleniron 1: I was really impressed with this now oval-shaped cairn with its burial chambers and spent ages walking round it and over it. The photographs don’t really do it justice.

Mid Gleniron 5

Trip No.137  Entry No.7  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 4 Access 3

Log Text: Mid Gleniron 5: This cairn lies west of track to the farmhouse, south east of the oval cairn, and is very distinct in the field and on the aerial photographs.

The mound of the cairn stood out particularly today as the farmer was spreading the lines of harvested grass to dry as we walked across the field, and he had gone round this cairn with the tractor.

Mid Gleniron 4

Trip No.137  Entry No.6  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 3

Log Text: Mid Gleniron 4: This is the large bell cairn at the top of the hill, near the farmhouse, which dominates the view as you walk up the track towards the farmhouse.

Access into the field is easy, and it’s possible to walk all the way round the cairn to see its structure and enjoy the views.

Mid Gleniron 3

Trip No.137  Entry No.4  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: Mid Gleniron 3: OK, the GPS led me to this spot, but there wasn’t much to see. Had it not been for the sheer number of cows and their calves in the field, I would have gone for a closer look, but bottled out. I photographed this feature by leaning over the dry stone wall.

Mid Gleniron 2

Trip No.137  Entry No.5  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Chambered Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: Mid Gleniron 2: Photos taken from NX 18753 60931, I photographed a mound approximately 20 metres to east (right) of track as walked uphill, with a cattle feeder virtually on top.

I wasn’t sure that this was a cairn at all, although Andrew was certain. In fact Canmore shows there are the remains of two cairns here, one at NX 1877 6093,the other at NX 1876 6092. With the cattle feeder placed virtually on top of the cairn at NX 1876 6092 and numerous, very curious cattle in the field, I photographed these from the gate into the field.

Mid Gleniron Stony Mounds

Trip No.137  Entry No.3  Date Added: 28th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: Mid Gleniron Stony Mounds: I found these stony mounds as fascinating as the chambered cairns just north of these mounds, so took a few photographs (just in case they were recorded cairns) and grid references. If they are field clearance stones, why place them in different mounds in the same field? And why so many smaller stones? The larger stones are most likely field clearance, but the make up of the mounds is similar to Gleniron 1 to Gleniron 5 inclusive.

There are two mounds on the eastern side of the farm track and another four on the western side.

Kirkcolm Cross

Trip No.137  Entry No.2  Date Added: 27th Jun 2019
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Kirkcolm Cross: From the Knock & Maize standing stone we followed the minor roads across this peninsula until we reached the western shores of Loch Ryan, then drove north to Kirkcolm.

This cross slab has quite a complicated history of being sited in different locations (read the Canmore details below). The town has lovely views over Loch Ryan and Cairnryan ferry terminal.

The cross slab is now located in the external western corner of the south transept (although the building it stands next to looks more like an outhouse).

In the churchyard is an amazing statue of a woman with child clutching her. It looks as if she is a fisherwoman waiting for her man to come home. I guess she would have had views over Loch Ryan but the church building is in the way.

We did go in search of the original site of Kilmore Chapel and St Mary’s Well, to the south of Kirkcolm, but these appear to either be in a field next to a private house, now ploughed out, or partly in their very gated and (rightly so) private garden.

Knock and Maize

Trip No.137  Entry No.1  Date Added: 27th Jun 2019
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 18th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Knock & Maize Standing Stone: Lovely views of the sea, but the view of the stone was a little spoilt by its proximity to the telegraph poles. It was only when we got into the field and I was photographing the stone that we realised there was a large herd of bullocks down the bottom end of the field. Half of them stood up, but thankfully they were too lazy to come over and take a closer look.

There were lots of smaller boulders around this stone – field clearance or where the stone has been fractured over the years? There are certainly lots of fracture lines and ‘dings’ on the stone. Perhaps the stones are both.

Kirkmadrine Church Stones

Trip No.136  Entry No.14  Date Added: 26th Jun 2019
Site Type: Early Christian Sculptured Stone Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Kirkmadrine Old Church & Early Christian Stones: Now this site I was so looking forward to seeing, but in some ways it was the most disappointing.

As we arrived at the foot of the grassy lane to the church, the heavens opened, and my, did it pour. Thankfully, we were sheltered to some extent by the trees on either side of the lane. Eventually, we came to the gate into the churchyard, with the cross on a mound to our right, and the church to our left.

The stones were displayed behind glass at the exterior western end of the church. To even see the stones we had to wipe the rain from the glass with a handkerchief. Unfortunately, raindrops had leaked behind the glass, affecting the clarity of our view of the stones. In addition, the light at this time of evening (around 5pm) was bouncing off the glass, and trying to photograph the most impressive, and oldest, stone at the back left hand side (northern) side of the display proved virtually impossible, despite the UV filter, because the reflections of the trees in the glass were too strong. I tried photographing from various angles, but to no real effect.

I went away really disappointed, as these stones are really impressive and I wanted to see more. I did contact Canmore with a photograph a week ago (today is 26th June) but have had no reply apart from an automatic acknowledgement of receiving my message.

Cairnweil standing stone

Trip No.136  Entry No.15  Date Added: 26th Jun 2019
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: South Carnweil Standing Stone: From Kirkmadrine Church, we travelled back along the road eastwards towards the A716, we stopped off to see this standing stone, by a wall, up a hill, but not quite at the top of the hill. It certainly is a big stone.

The road was narrow, so we bumped right up on the grass blocking a gated entrance to a field, ready to run back if we were causing an obstruction. After such a heavy rainstorm not half an hour before, we got quite wet walking up the hill, but it was worth it.

In some ways, this made up for not being able to see the stones at Kirkmadrine very well.

Spittal Croft cairn

Trip No.136  Entry No.13  Date Added: 26th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Boreland Cairn: By this time of the afternoon (early evening) I was getting more than a little ‘cairned-out’ having seen, and still trying to make sense of, all those cairns at Torhousekie. But this was a lovely little cairn, complete with sheep warming themselves by the small piles of stones on top of the cairn.

With rain threatening and the dark clouds feeling as if they were virtually overhead, we walked some way up and down both sides of the road, both the B733 and the minor road running between the B733 and the B7052, but could find no gate into the field, so photographed the cairn as best I could from the dry stone wall.

We did go further up the road to find the standing stones and cairn at NX 3522 5808 and NX 3528 5819 (Canmore 62860 and 62849 respectively), but the field was jam-packed full of cattle.

Torhousekie Farm Cairn

Trip No.136  Entry No.12  Date Added: 26th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Torhousekie Farm Cairn: With tea-time fast approaching and cars whizzing up and down the road at high speed, Andrew pulled into a gateway opposite the cairn whilst I hopped out to take some photos.

It was a lot more interesting than it looked, with definite structures on the sides and top. I could only view it from the field to the east, where part of it protruded into the field, cut by a dry stone wall.

Torhouse North Cairn

Trip No.136  Entry No.11  Date Added: 26th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition -1 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Torhouse North Cairn (now destroyed): Being so close to the stone row, the stone circle and other cairns, I was curious to see where this cairn might have been, and what views from it. From the Torhousekie North Side Cairn (to the left/west of the track – see above) we continued up the track for another 100m or so. The site of this cairn can be found at the top of a natural knoll with a view of the stone circle below.

There were no signs of the cairn (we looked around for any humps and hollows and stones at the top of the knoll but were unable to find anything), but took some photos showing where it would have been.

Using the zoom lens I took a couple of photos of the stone circle from just below the top of the knoll (see the Torhousekie Stone Circle entry).

Torhouse North Side Cairn

Trip No.136  Entry No.10  Date Added: 25th Jun 2019
Site Type: Cairn Country: Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway)
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2019. My rating: Condition -1 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Torhouse North Side Cairn: We had the Canmore ID record printed off for this cairn, but we were a little confused. One entry in Canmore said the cairn had been almost entirely removed and the site used as a dump for field clearance stones, but at the grid reference point there was nothing but a ploughed field.

I've marked the location of where the cairn should be with an arrow on the photograph. It is in precisely the location identified by SumDoood, although we could make out nothing on the ground.