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 County Buildings, Wigtown |
 South Street, Garlieston |
 Whithorn Priory |
Head east from Stranraer and the main A75 bypasses the large triangular headland known as The Machars. You can browse books about Dumfries and Galloway in our Bookshop (this may take a moment to load).
This easily overlooked area is well worth exploring. The west coast of The Machars comprises a strip of raised beach that offers little shelter for boats. The exception is where the beach is cut by the valley of the Killantrae Burn, and here you find this coast's only harbour, Port William.
The focus of the southern end of the Machars is the ancient town of Whithorn, the cradle of Christianity in Scotland and just possibly Scotland's oldest continuously occupied settlement.
Whithorn Priory lies just to the west of Whithorn's main street. It is a remarkable place, and a confusing one. It has been home to an active church for the better part of sixteen centuries. But the vast length of its history means that at least three completely different eras of Christianity are reflected either in the stonework on the ground or in the associated folklore.
Three miles to the south east is the Isle of Whithorn, whose main role through history was to service the seaborne flow of goods and pilgrims bound to and from Whithorn. Following harbour improvements of the 1790s it became the home port for up to a dozen trading vessels, though these same improvements included a causeway that joined the Isle of Whithorn to the mainland.
Heading up the east side of the Machars you come to the attractive port and resort of Garlieston. A little further north still is Wigtown, Scotland's Book Town. Here you find a large central square that is home to around a dozen bookshops, with many more elsewhere in the town. It is also the home, each Autumn, to the Wigtown Book Festival. And as an added attraction, nearby Bladnoch is the location of Scotland's most southerly distillery.
The Machars Peninsula is also home to a number of fascinating prehistoric sites. These include the Torhouse Stone Circle three miles west of Wigtown and the Drumtroddan Standing Stones and nearby cup-and-ring marked stones north east of Port William.
North of Wigtown you rejoin the main A75 near Newton Stewart. This is an attractive town traditionally best known for its game fishing. Nowadays it is also seen as a natural base from which to explore the Galloway Forest Park, covering a vast area stretching north and east from Newton Stewart.
