About
In the porch of an isolated church on a low ridge in the Rhins of Galloway, near Sandhead, a glass screen protects a group of carved stones dating from the 500s to the 1100s. Three of them are among the oldest Christian memorials in Scotland, of the 500s, with Latin inscriptions and chi-rho crosses. The finest reads here lie the holy and chief priests, Ides, Viventius and Mavorius, usually taken to mean bishops, and another commemorates Florentius; together they record the earliest personal names known in Galloway. Two were noticed in 1860 serving as gateposts on the churchyard avenue and another in 1916 as a gatepost a mile away, and in 1882 they were among the first monuments protected by law, alongside Stonehenge and Avebury. The church, rebuilt in the 1800s as a family mausoleum, is locked, but the stones can be seen through the glass at any time. A grassy tree-lined track leads up from a gate with room for two or three cars.
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- Kirkmadrine StonesOpen at all times; the stones are seen through a glass screen in the church porch, no hours published
Opening times may change at short notice.
Historic Scotland: 'The Kirkmadrine Stones are free to visit and open year-round.' No hours, closures or notices on 20 October 2026; not on Historic Scotland's closures page.
The carved stones stand in an open porch at the west end of the small restored church, behind a glass screen with information boards; the church itself, a 19th-century mausoleum, is locked. The walk up from the lane is about five minutes on a grassy path through trees, and the old burial ground around the church is on uneven ground on a small hill. No toilets or other facilities.
Photo: Kirkmadrine Church from the west, its red sandstone porch with the glass screen that shelters the carved stones, and old gravestones on the grassy knoll. WeeHolly, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:02900_Stewart_Mausoleum-Chapel,_Kirkmadrine_001.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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