Site Report

WoSASPIN 5015
NS06SW 4 0349 6126.

(NS 0348 6125) St Ninian's Chapel (NR) (Rems of)
OS 6" map (1957)

Excavations in 1952 and 1954 showed that this site was first occupied by a pagan burial ground of long cists, diversely placed with a tendency to lie N-S. One burial was accompanied by a fragment of an undatable jet armlet. A circular enclosure with a wall of stones and turf, 72' in diameter, was then formed, leaving some of the graves outside. It had been completely removed on the NE, but on the SE, where best preserved, it was 3' thick and 3' high, its top just below modern ground level. On the ESE, the enclosure wall incorporated a fragment of an older wall running at right angles to it, but there is no evidence to show what type of structure it belonged to. Most of the graves now lying within the enclosure are oriented. At a time when some at least of the oriented graves had collapsed, a small oratory, St Ninian's Chapel, some 21' x 13' within 4' thick walls, was built. Its altar of rough masonry faced with slabs, had a fossa or cavity for relics at the S end.
Two kitchen middens containing large quantities of shells and bones were piled against the enclosure wall in the SE, and a similar midden occupied the site of the wall in the SW. No datable finds were made.
The chapel, founded from Whithorn, was built in the 6th or early 7th century and Radford suggests, from its simplicity that it was abandoned with the arrival of the Norse in the 9th century. Thomas, however, states that it must have continued to be a cult centre through the Middle Ages, as only this would account for the survival of the name.
W G Aitken 1955; C A R Radford 1967; C Thomas 1971

NS 0349 6126. St Ninian's Chapel (name verified) is situated on a narrow peninsula. The chapel oriented E-W measures 6.3m by 4.0m internally and the walls are 1.2m wide and 0.9m high with an off centre entrance in the S side.
It is enclosed by the remains of a near circular stone wall 24.0m E-W by 23.5m transversely overall. This wall, best preserved in the S, has several courses of masonry (up to 0.3m high) visible in the outer face whilst the inner face is barely traceable and it is not possible to give an accurate wall width. There is now no evidence of either the altar, the burials or the kitchen middens.
Surveyed at 1:10,000.
Visited by OS (TRG) 10 November 1976