216 Field Meetings. 



Ninian. It bears to have been set up to mark the burial place of 

 the daughter of a Roman General, Flaminius, who probably held 

 a command at the camp of Rispain, near to Whithorn ; and it mav 

 have been brought here from the vicinity of the camp, for not all 

 the relics collected at the Priory were found within its precincts. 

 The Rev. Mr Henry directed attention to another small stone on 

 which three Latin crosses are rudely carved — a tall one in the 

 centre, a shorter one at either side — pointing out that it was evi- 

 dently intended to represent the crucifixion, and remarking that it 

 might possibly go back to the time of St. Ninian. The pioneer 

 apostle of Scotland is reported to have died in 432, and to have 

 been buried at Whithorn. There he had established a church 

 and a seminary for the training of Christian teachers; but of 

 course the buildings of which the remnants now survive are of a 

 later creation, and do not date beyond the twelfth century. The 

 sculptured stones here collected include numerous crosses and 

 fragments of crosses. Some are in the form of an oblong shaft, 

 ornamented with interlaced pattern or ring and wicker work, and 

 ending in an oval disc, on which a cross pattee is outlined by a 

 central boss and four boss-bottomed cavities. An elaborate 

 piece of carving represents a bishop with his hands crossed over a 

 lion rampant in the attitude of benediction, and may be inter- 

 preted as symbolising St. Ninian blessing Scotland. 



Whether it was at Whithorn itself, or on the spit of land at 

 Isle of Whithorn, that St. Ninian erected the first stone house for 

 Christian worship in Scotland is a point over which historians and 

 antiquaries will continue to differ, for there exists no sufficient 

 data to bring it to a conclusive test. The balance of evidence 

 seems to favour the Isle, as conforming to the earliest extant 

 description of the spot, which was said to be washed by the sea 

 on three sides. The tiny whinstone building there — measuring 

 but twelve paces by seven — roofless and weather-worn, is, like the 

 other early Christian remains in this most interesting neighbour- 

 hood, placed by the Ancient Monuments Act under the protection 

 of the Woods and Forest Department. There is strong reason to 

 believe that in it we see the successor of the humble dwellings to 

 which St. Ninian 's Roman neighbours at Rispain gave the name 

 Candida Casa, or White House, and that in some foundation 

 stones which neighbour it we mav even see actual relics of the 



