Wednesday, September 9th, 2009: Whithorn Abbey and Pre-historic Stone Monuments in Southern Scotland

Our first order of business was finding a B&B in southwestern Scotland so that we could explore that area. We had obtained a booklet listing B&Bs at the Visitor Information Center in Dumfries, so we drove in the general direction of the castles, abbeys, and stone circles that we wanted to see during the next couple of days and inspected the B&Bs we found along our route. Finally in Gatehouse of Fleet we found the Bobbin Guest House. The Bobbins House was so named because apparently it had once been part of a mill, and in particular the part where the bobbins were wound with thread. Nowadays, of course, it's just a very nice Bed & Breakfast that provided us with a room for the next two nights.

The Bobbin B&B had wonderful hosts and served very large portions for the morning breakfast! Now in general the breakfasts provided in Scotland were quite generous, but the ones at the Bobbin Guest House were particularly so. I didn't know that the first morning we stayed there and ended up with three pieces of English bacon (American: slices of ham), two eggs, Haggis, beans, mushrooms, and a huge fried tomato rather than the rather small, ones typically served at the other B&Bs we had stayed at. I did manage to finish it all so as to not waste food, but I felt a bit stuffed afterward and made sure to be specific and order far less food the following morning!

Knowing we had a place to put our weary heads that night, we now could relax and focus the rest of our day on seeing the sights. Our first visit was to the old Priory at Whithorn at the southern end of Scotland on the coast of the Irish Sea. We had trouble finding the ruins even using the Explorer Pass guide, so we finally parked the car in the little town of Whithorn and started walking. Canvassing the town on foot, we finally detected a small sign for the priory pointing the way through an old stone archway.

Once through the archway we finally saw the ruins of the old Priory tranquilly standing on a small knoll amidst a graveyard. We thought they were very picturesque and decided to see if we could find out more about the old priory. First, though, we had a quick lunch at a small diner on the main street that turned out to be physically connected to the local museum in the building behind it! So after lunch we just obtained our museum tickets and walked right back through a connecting hall into the museum, which certainly was convenient. The connecting hallway was part of the exhibit area with several cases of artifacts from the early Christian, Viking, and later Christian eras.

The docent in charge of the museum that day informed us that a guided tour would be given of the priory and we were overjoyed to be in time for that. Our tour guide, an elderly gentleman, was extremely knowledgeable and gave us fascinating glimpses into the history of the priory. That history was quite complex because the priory had both an early Christian period and a later Christian period interrupted by the (non-Christian) period of Viking occupation from about 800-1000 A.D.

But even the earliest versions of the Christian religion were quite late compared to the Stone Age and Bronze Age religions that dominated the region well before the birth of Christ. Archeologists have determined different styles of religious structures using stones that were used in those B.C. millenia. The very first Stone Age and Bronze Age settlers apparently erected circles of stones while the folks from the later B.C. periods emphasized structures of standing stones. Even the early Christians carved patterns into standing stones as part of their religion.

The coolest thing that the Whithorn museum offered was the opportunity to stamp some thick paper bookmarks with copies of the patterns found on the stones in the area. It was had to get the stamps lined up correctly, but when we finally did we made some dandy bookmarks to take back home! Certainly, I was intrigued enough by the discussion of stone circles and standing stones to brave the extra driving required to see some of those very old stone monuments on our way back to our B&B.

We drove into the middle of the Machars peninsula on a narrow road where we found the first structure of standing stones, the Drumtroddan Standing Stones. We had to park at the side of the road and walk into a farmer's field to get to the site, but a small quadrangle right in the middle of the field had been fenced off to keep the sheep and cattle out, I suppose. It was kind of spooky seeing a large, imposing relic from a culture at least 2,000-4,000 years old, even if it was just 3 really big stones. Originally there had been 3 standing stones, according to the plaque at the site, but the middle stone had ultimately succumbed to the Law of Gravity and fell over on its side. Still, those stones had been brought from some distance away and considerable effort had been expended to dig the pits and get them standing bolt upright, so I was impressed. It was also nice to be able to walk right up to them to be able to closely inspect the surface, but I couldn't find any evidence of carving or decorations such as we had earlier seen on the Pictish Stones in Meigle that were, of course, much later in origin.

Returning to the car, we continued our drive northward through the countryside to the Torhouse Stone Circle that was indicated on the atlas that Patience and Greg's had loaned us. Of course, we had seen a much smaller stone circle at Aviemore just a few days back, but that circle was less than 1/3 the size of this one. This stone circle had 19 large stones arranged in a fairly perfect circle around three large central stones, which may have been the central altar or place of worship if the structure was essentially a religious one. Furthermore, the stones were much larger over on the southeastern side of the circle than they were on the other three quadrants, a puzzling situation for which we may never know the answer as those Stone Age settlers left no written records.

Continuing our drive back to the B&B at the Gatehouse on Fleet, we headed eastward but stopped off just a fews miles short of the B&B to visit the Cairn Holy site, also listed on Patience and Greg's atlas (Thank you, Patience and Greg!). The site has two distinct sections separated by a couple hundred yards or so. Cairn Holy I is a fancy stone complex with an inner chamber and a set of 8 standing stones arranged roughly like a palisade in front. The inner chamber might have been a burial site, but it equally well could have house holy relics or a priests' chamber or other such things associated with that Old Time Religion.

At Cairn Holy I we ran across "Joe", a 30-something man with a camera and notebook in which he was industriously scribbling detailed notes about the structure. Since we seemed interested, he favored us by recounting the various ways the site was organized to the cardinal directions of the compass and to the sunrise and sunsets on the summer solstice, winter solstice, and spring and fall equinoxes. He was more than a bit of an enthusiast about the topic, rather more in the way of a Magnificent Obsession as he seemed to have been studying the site in all seasons for many years.

Taking leave of Joe we proceeded to Holy Cairn II, which was just up a farm road about 100 meters from Holy Cairn I. Completely unexpectedly, there was a Bed and Breakfast farmhouse just on the other side of the site! The tomb chamber for Holy Cairn II seemed more intact than at Holy Cairn I, but the front was just a couple of standing stones and a slab covering two side pieces rather than the extensive row of upright stones at Holy Cairn I. The explanatory plaques had speculations about the use of Holy Cairn I as a site for preparation for burial while Holy Cairn II would be the final interment place, but I'm not sure how much hard evidence supported that idea.

After exploring the Holy Cairn site, we just drove the short distance back to the Bobbin House and settled in for the evening. We planned our next day using the Explorer Pass guidebook to select sites in the area we wanted to see. Then using Patience and Greg's road atlas we mapped out a driving loop that would let us visit as many castles and abbeys as possible on our last full day in Scotland.