Number 9 High Street

Gallery of Images

9 High Street just after clearance work began

The rear wall was almost non-existent and had to be built to full height by a team of young masons with a trainer

North Chimney rebuilt and roof structure complete, ready for slating.

Young employees learning traditional slater work

Rebuilding the North Chimney

Hand made windows - trial before adjustment

Project Description

Number 9 High Street was a derelict property within the Outstanding Conservation Area of Whithorn: it had been roofless for over 30 years and increasingly a blight on the surrounding terraced houses, causing damp to neighbouring properties and creating an air of neglect in this part of High Street. There had been an absentee owner for around the same period of time.

The Whithorn Trust purchased it in 2022 and has funded its restoration in partnership with Building Futures Galloway, a separate youth-focussed charity which originated in a Whithorn Trust employability and heritage project in 2021. 

Building Futures Galloway both employs and trains young people remote from the labour market: its employees are aged from 16 to 27 and have faced a variety of barriers which have led to unemployment and lack of opportunity. The trainees, currently 11, learn traditional masonry, architectural joinery, clinker-built boatbuilding, green woodworking / timber-framing, and will soon be awarded vocational qualifications, once approved by Qualifications Scotland. They are paid the Real Living Wage. The charity also trains schoolchildren aged 14-16 in similar skills. A small group of expert trainers in heritage skills are either employed or on permanent contracts with the charity. 

9 High Street offered the entire range of skills, since its stone walls were unstable and dilapidated, its chimneys needed to be rebuilt, and it presented a unique opportunity to test trainees' skills on a full-scale building, in skill areas ranging from making a limecrete slab to a circular staircase, making sash and case windows, lime pointing, sustainable insulation including hempcrete and wood fibre, traditional slating; furthermore it offered an understanding of site management in a construction environment, health and safety and working at height. 

Restoration is being completed in Spring 2026. The funders are Historic Environment Scotland and the National Heritage Lottery Fund.  During construction the date of 1765 was found etched into stone near the upper floor fireplace; this was earlier than the 19th Century date we had presumed. 

Supporting Statement

Building Futures Galloway offers young people opportunities for fulfilling long-term careers in the heritage sector, which is suffering critical shortages. If these are to be addressed, we need to invent more flexible pathways for learning suited to young people who do not thrive in a classroom setting, lack employment and income opportunties. This is exacerbated in the Machars, where young people live over 70 miles from the nearest College and over 100 miles from a College offering traditional skills such as masonry.  Working at full-scale on a heritage building offers experience of real-life construction environments and stretches trainees to achieve excellence, while maintaining health and safety and observing a timetable. 

9 High Street had been a blight on this area of Whithorn which has the highest indices of deprivation and for decades there had been no solution in sight. This was a unique opportunity to renovate this while benefiting the most vulnerable young people and aligning the skills with national shortages offers benefits to community, participants and the heritage sector. 

Building Futures Galloway has focussed on the Net Zero retrofit of traditional buildings. 9 High Street offered a blank canvas for radical repair to masonry, using lime-based mortars, and the opportunity to install sustainable insulation throughout, enabling practice with limecrete, hempcrete and fleece insulation. The roof structure was experimental, agreed with Historic Environment Scotland, using locally supplied windblown oak which was hand-hewn with axes using mediaeval techniques of squaring a beam from round timber. The slate was reclaimed and applied in diminishing courses. Stone from the site was reused. 

Young people are taught the lime-cycle - the ability of lime to absorb CO2 and to be infinitely recycled, as well as its impact on the breathability of the building and the elimination of damp and cold. These repair measures were the prelude to the installation of breathable insulation and an Air Source Heat Pump, with solar panels to offset its electricity usage.  The local Primary School was involved in documenting the Net Zero measures being applied to the building, thanks to a Climate Engagement Fund award.

The property will be used to house trainers coming from a distance for training sessions with the trainees and schoolchildren. 

This building has been the stimulus for larger projects. Once they have completed this in Spring 2026, they will move on to the Old Town Hall, Whithorn, dated to 1814, where preliminary works to remove 1960's cement render has begun. It will be a Net Zero training flagship and is eligible for Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal funding in 2026, with results awaited. 

The team has won the VIBES award in the Just Transition category (November 2023)  for their work on Net Zero retrofit. Based on their experience at 9 High Street, they are developing a Green Skills Passport which will cross the divide between heritage skills and climate science, using accessible language and fillable spaces for learners' statements. This will introduce retrofit concepts and allow documenting of learning for young people without formal qualifications.