The Wigtown Martyrs

A couple of years ago it was the 30th anniversary of the making of the cult hit film The Wicker Man and director Robin Hardy and actress Ingrid Pitt returned to Wigtown in Scotland where the film had been shot for a celebratory weekend.

We went along to support Ingrid and had a great weekend of which the abiding memory is of driving down pitch dark country lanes having no idea where I was heading with Ingrid saying "You're doing very well, I wouldn't be so confident about finding my way..." We stayed ourselves in a more modest little guest house on the edge of a great salt marsh which was so flat that the incoming tide covers a huge expanse of land. It had been the scene of a great tragedy of justice in the 17th Century.

Kings since Henry VIII have been Head of the Church and an oath recognising him as such was required. With the union of Scotland and England under King James I, the oath was required for the first time of Scots. Many refused, saying that Jesus was obviously the Head of the Church. Those refusing to give the oath were known as Covenanters. Two such women were gruesomely martyred here on 11 May 1685. Margaret McLachlan, an elderly woman in her 60s, and Margaret Wilson, a teenager, were sentenced to be tied to stakes on the merse at Wigtown Bay to be drowned by the incoming tide.

The old woman's stake was further out than the teenager's so that the sight of her drowning might influence her to give the oath. However she would not and was also drowned as the tide rose further. The pillar shown was set up on the site, though the tide mark has since receded from that of 1685.

Related: The weekend with Ingrid Pitt at the Wicker Man anniversary