WHITHORN, royal burgh and parish of Wigtownshire, Scot land, 12-1 m. S. of Wigtown by rail. Pop. (1931) 951. St. Ninian or Ringan, the first Christian missionary to Scotland, landed at the Isle of Whithorn, where he built (397) a stone church, which, out of contrast with the dark mud and wattle huts of the natives, was called Candida Casa, the White House. Ninian was buried in the church. A hundred years later the Magnum Monasterium, or monastery of Rosnat, was founded and in the 8th century became the seat of the bishopric of Galloway. It was
succeeded in the 12th century by St. Ninian's Priory, built for Premonstratensian monks by Fergus "King" of Galloway, of which only the chancel (used as the parish church till 1822) and other fragments remain. In Roman times Whithorn belonged to the Novantae, and William Camden, the antiquary, identified it with the Leukopibia of Ptolemy.