Wigtown, Wigtown Parish Church, Churchyard, St Machute's Church
Church (Medieval), Church (18th Century)
Site Name Wigtown, Wigtown Parish Church, Churchyard, St Machute's Church
Classification Church (Medieval), Church (18th Century)
Alternative Name(s) St Machutus's Church
Canmore ID 63365
Site Number NX45NW 4
NGR NX 43552 55518
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/63365
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Wigtown
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Wigtown
- Former County Wigtownshire
NX45NW 4 43552 55518
(NX 43552 55518) St Machute's Church (NR) (Ruin)
OS 25" map (1908)
For (adjacent) present parish church and (surrounding) churchyard, see NX45NW 15.00.
The remains are those of the former parish church, rebuilt in 1730 on the foundations of a 13th century (possibly 12th century - T S Muir 1885) church dedicated to St Machute (G Chalmers 1824) or St Machutus (the regular form of the name from 1144 onwards (W J Watson 1926).
The east gable is 27ft 4ins wide and the N and S walls survive for lengths of 15 and 58ft respectively. The walls vary in thickness from 2 ft 10ins to 4ft.
The only remains of the earlier building now visible are a string course at the E end and a portion of a buttress at the SE angle. Muir recorded an apparently Norman font in 1849 which had disappeared by 1864. A ruined building of late date, with walls about 7 ft high, projects about 17 ft from the south wall and is about 23 ft wide overall.
F H Groome 1901; D MacGibbon and T Ross 1897; RCAHMS 1912.
The remains of the church are generally as described above. The later building is a burial vault.
Visited by OS (RD) 27 August 1970.
St Machutus's Church [NAT]
OS (GIS) MasterMap, July 2009.
Publication Account (1981)
The parish church of Wigtown was dedicated to an obscure Welsh saint, Machatus. Precisely how old the church is remains a mystery, and although at one time it belonged to the Priory of Whithorn, Wigtown parish church was afterwards set up as a free rectory with the king as patron (Fraser, 1877, 12). A church was erected on the site of the medieval parish church in 1730 and almost within a century that church was ruinous .for a third parish church was built close by in 1850. Portions of the 1730 church survive, although fragments of this may in fact be older than that date, for there is a window on the south side ais.le ornamented with trefoiled heads and stone mullions with shields carved on them (Agnew, 1928, 59).
Information from ‘Historic Wigtown: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).
