Rosslyn Chapel
- A visit to Midlothian, near Edinburgh
- Finding Rosslyn Chapel
- The former Inn and a barrowload of manure
- Into the Chapel
- A few observations on the Chapel
- Conservation of the building (and more about its history)
- Brief history of the Chapel
- More legends surrounding the Chapel
- Literary Interest boosting visitor numbers
- The Chapel continues to have a religious role
- Finishing our visit
- Seeing the movie of "The Da Vinci Code"
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A visit to Midlothian, near Edinburgh
My wife Maggie and I were attending a wedding dance at Dalhousie Castle one Friday evening, along with friends, staying in Carlethan House. It was obvious from our short stay at the guest house that Midlothian is an attractive area for easy walks on the south side of Edinburgh. Not only are there hiking trails over the shapely Pentland Hills, there are walks at country parks at Dalkeith and Vogrie, a cycle/walkway between Penicuik and Musselburgh (in East Lothian), and other routes at North Esk and Gladhouse Reservoirs.
Not to mention the walks around Rosslyn Chapel and Roslin Glen covered here (with the Da Vinci Code connection). These are all described in the excellent "Explore Midlothian" booklet which we picked up at Carlethan House. Quin Dunlop - who, along with his wife Margaret runs the guest house - is clearly an active marketeer , co-operating with other guest house owners to promote The Gems of Midlothian and also producing promotional videos and an imaginative website.
Carlethan guest house isn't the easiest to find, tucked away down a narrow road off the A768 to Lasswade, but it's worth the effort, being a fine old house with high ceilings, large gardens and lots of character. We were there in early April, but it was the end of a late wintry spell, and as we prepared for the reception we looked out on a heavy snowstorm. Fortunately it had eased off by the time the taxi arrived.
After a lively ceilidh at Dalhousie Castle near Bonnyrigg, we enjoyed a good night's sleep and breakfast the next morning. We were joined by another couple who were due to attend a wedding that day at Borthwick Castle - there seem to be lots of castles in the area, some ruined and some providing atmospheric venues for functions! Apparently Dalhousie entertained 350 weddings in 2005!
We thought as we were so close, we should pay a visit to Rosslyn Chapel, and maybe combine it with a short hike if the weather was fine. I'd seen signs for the Chapel in the past when driving down to Dumfries via Penicuik, and vaguely heard about the intriguing stone carvings, but had never visited it before. However, on the drive through to Edinburgh the previous afternoon we had heard the radio discussion about Dan Brown's High Court success against claims that he had plagiarised the story from the earlier book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and this added to the topicality of a visit to Rosslyn Chapel. An account of the court case can be found on this website.
We were given directions to the Chapel and managed to follow them successfully. If you're heading there from Edinburgh or the ring-road (the A720), the easiest way is just to take the A701 from the Straiton Junction signposted for Penicuik. Almost immediately you're driving past a retail park on your left, and you have to take care not to be drawn into the Ikea car park (unless you want to go there first!). Keep in the right-hand lane past all the shops and then the road narrows as you approach Bilston. In Bilston you turn left at the sign for Roslin, Roslin Glen and Rosslyn Chapel, on the B7006. It's just about a mile along here, past the Roslin Biocentre on your left (Roslin's other claim to fame is as the location for the cloning of Dolly the Sheep back in 1997 at the Roslin Institute which is located at the Biocentre).
At Roslin village there is a crossroads with a hotel on each side of the main road (see photo on the Roslin Glen page). It's straight ahead to Rosslyn Chapel, whilst you need to follow the road round to the right through the village to reach the main parking area for Roslin Glen.
Rosslyn Chapel is just a couple of hundred yards down this little road, and it makes a strange sight (see photo), with an ochre-painted building to the fore, overshadowed by a metal canopy which is suspended over the Chapel to the rear. There's car parking on the right and an overflow car park just beyond on the left. We soon found out why the overflow is necessary, due to the dramatic increase in numbers of visitors to the Chapel over the past few years since The Da Vinci Code was published.
The former Inn and a barrowload of manure
After parking we walked up to the ochre building just mentioned, on a corner with a lane leading down to the right (leading to the Castle and Glen - referred to later). It's an old building full of character, now called College Hill, and a plaque provides an explanation of its heritage.
THE OLD ROSSLYN INN (CIRCA 1660 - 1866)
HERE COUNTLESS TRAVELLERS TARRIED AWHILE
AMONG THE DISTINGUISHED VISITORS WERE
KING EDWARD VII WHEN PRINCE OF WALES,
DR SAMUEL JOHNSON AND JAMES BOSWELL,
ROBERT BURNS AND ALEXANDER NAYSMITH,
SIR WALTER SCOTT AND WILLIAM AND DOROTHY
WORDSWORTH.
ERECTED IN 1950 B MRS HERBERTSON OF MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA
DAUGHTER OF THE LATE CHARLES TAYLOR CURATOR OF THE CHAPEL
A pity it's not still in operation, it would be doing very nicely now!
Just beyond that, to the left beside the entrance to the overflow car park there's a wheelbarrow parked with some filled plastic bags in it, and a sign advertising "Da Vinci Horse Manure, 50p per bag" (see the photo). Well, if that's not blatant cashing in, then I don't know what is! Of course, it could be an underhand comment on the merits of the novel!
We went into the pre-fabricated ticket office, with a wall display providing some background on the Chapel's history. It was £6 for admission, and I paid the extra for a guidebook written by the Earl of Rosslyn. As so often happens with visits to historic buildings, I read the excellent guidebook after returning home, and wished I'd looked out for various features during the tour!
A stone wall surrounds the Chapel, and we went through the gateway and up to the main doorway into the Chapel itself.
Luckily the guide had just started providing a tour to a small crowd of visitors at one end of the building. Further along the nave was a camera crew shooting a film of some sort (it turned out they were from Canada, producing a feature on the Freemasonry associations for Channel 4, and were just the latest of a long line of film-makers to visit recently). We joined the group listening to the guide as he described the intricately carved details in the stonework, and the strange stories that had arisen over the years.
A few observations on the Chapel
Rosslyn Chapel was built over a period of 40 years starting in 1446, and is incomplete; a larger cruciform (cross-shaped) building was planned.
Among the remarkable stone carvings are the fine Apprentice pillar with spiral patterns, and the mason pillar with a square form. Legend has it that the mason went away to Rome and when he came back his apprentice had completed this splendid piece of work. Unfortunately the mason was furious and killed the trainee with a blow of his mallet!
Other features include a relief of Jesus peaking out under the ceiling decorations with his hand raised; matching architraves (horizontal stone beams) showing the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues; and angels playing a variety of instruments including the bagpipes. Each section of the ceiling displays a different symbol in the carvings - daisies, lilies, flowers, roses and stars. The guide book details many other fascinating features.
Among the more unusual features, there are apparently dozens of carvings of the Green Man, which appears in many medieval buildings and has pagan origins. The story of Robin Hood is derived from this tradition. More intriguingly, there are carvings that are said to represent North American corn and cacti, supporting a legend that an ancestor of the founder had visited North America before Columbus. The guide certainly enjoyed telling the stories, and we wondered how much truth there was in any of them.
There is no doubt however that the founder had connections with the Knights Templar and the Freemasons, and this helped inspire legends tied in with the fabric of the building. Some of these are developed to provide the denouement for Dan Brown's book.
Apparently one visitor announced that the building was in fact a spaceship and would ascent into the heavens before long!
The sacristy - a vaulted chamber reached by some steps leading down from the corner of the chapel - is much plainer in style but for a stone box carved with devilish figures. This was possibly older than the main chapel above.
Conservation of the building (and more about its history)
It's clearly been a struggle to preserve the building largely intact to the present day, and whilst the increase in visitor numbers generates valuable revenue, it also puts new strains on the maintenance of the fabric. The guide said the numbers had risen over a few years from 6000 to 118,000 in 2005.
Filming for BBC2 had taken place at the chapel just a few days before our visit, and we managed to see the programme the following Wednesday evening (12 April), as part of a series on churches. It was fascinating, telling the story of the struggle to conserve the buildiing against the background of the sudden increase in interest arising from the Da Vinci Code connection and the expected stimulus from the release of the film starring Tom Hanks (in May 2006).
The following notes are taken from the BBC2 programme, together with bits from the Guidebook and the information panels on site.
The Chapel has been in the same family since Sir William St Clair laid the foundaton stone in 1446. The town of Roslin was built to house the many craftsmen hired to carry out the work. It suffered badly from civil and religious strife, with the altars demolished in 1592 and the Chapel serving as a stable for Cromwell's troops during an attack on Rosslyn Castle in 1650. It was abandoned for many years, but was finally repaired in 1736 by James St Clair, and again in the 19th century, so that in 1862 it could be rededicated as a place of worship by the Bishop of Edinburgh. The apse was added in 1880-1 by the 4th Earl of Rosslyn, including the fine oak tracery around the baptistry arch.
The Chapel was almost closed in 1942 due to under-use, but survived, and in 1954 extensive treatment of the stonework was carried out. However, this had the effect of creating an impermeable coating of magnesium fluoride which trapped the moisture inside.
By the time the present (6th) Earl of Rosslyn inherited the building in 1977, it was in a sadly neglected state, with saturated walls and a leaking roof. By the 1990s it had deteriorated further, and a way needed to be found to manage and maintain it. So in 1995 it was leased to a charitable trust, of which Stuart Beattie is the Director. They built up contacts, friends, and money, and put together a team to carry out the conservation. The idea was to protect the Chapel with a steel canopy to act as a giant umbrella, to allow the stonework to dry out.
This enabled serious conservation work to get under way, and it was decided to open the Chapel all year round. In 1998 a new visitor centre was opened by Prince Charles - and you can sit in the café area at the end of it, as we did, drinking your coffee under a picture of the Prince in the same spot!
More legends surrounding the Chapel
Despite the destructive activity of half a millennium, the Chapel is still full of exquisite craftsmanship, including many unusual and enigmatic carvings and imagery. Many of these seem to relate to the Knights Templar and Masonic traditions. The St Clairs were one of the most powerful families in Scotland, their ancestors having arrived with William the Conqueror (to whom they were related) in 1066. The Normans, of course, were the Norse Men originally from Norway.
An earlier William St Clair had been one of those killed by the Moors whilst attempting to take Robert the Bruce's heart to bury it in Jerusalem. There's a legend that Sir William St Clair, who was Hereditary Grand Master Mason of Scotland, was also a Knight Templar and might have been entrusted with the safe keeping of holy relics, and constructed a place such as Rosslyn to keep them safe. This was the association used by Dan Brown in his book.
Literary Interest boosting visitor numbers
Previously, Sir Walter Scott had done the same, generating an increase in visitor numbers to the Chapel with special coaches being laid on from Edinburgh. Many others have written about it before and since, and the Guidebook refers to several of them, including the 18th century poets Gillespie and Byron. It was also a focus of interest for romantic painters of the 18th century.
The current interest arising from Dan Brown's book is, however, unprecedented, and during the two years following publication the numbers of visitors trebled to more than 100,000, making it one of Scotland's premier visitor attractions. And yet it remains only a small chapel, with so much to be seen within its tight confines. The effect of the visitor numbers have been felt in the village, where some residents are not so happy to have the peaceful surroundings disturbed.
The Chapel continues to have a religious role. An Episcopalian congregation is allowed by the family to use what is in effect a private chapel, and it remains closed to the general public on Sunday mornings until after the regular service has finished. Four times a week, members of the congregation hold lunchtime prayer meetings to communicate its role as a living church, and try to quieten the visitors for ten minutes.
However the visitors are generally welcomed, as the Chapel is seen to be the heritage of humankind. Countess Helen Rosslyn spoke of how the family are custodians for their lifetimes. The effects of visitor numbers on the stonework are carefully monitored - just rubbing against the fragile sandstone can wear it away.
In 2005 the producers of the film of The Da Vinci Code asked to film there, and a decision had to be made as to whether this would benefit the local community, the church, and Scotland as a whole. Westminster Abbey had refused, whilst Lincoln Cathedral had accepted. It was decided to let them in, and for four days Holywood took over with a crew of 250, the Director and the two stars of the film.
Many more visitors will come as a result - those involved in maintaining the Chapel hope that they will feel something better for coming there.
We had wanted to go for a walk after visiting the chapel, but it was cold and pouring with rain as we explored the roof from the metal stairs and suspended walkway. We could see the Glen and the grey silhouette of the ruined castle below us, but our thoughts were of some warm dry place and a hot drink. We found these on the way out, in the shop and cafe. There were pictures on the walls showing the chapel in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was largely derelict, and of Prince Charles opening the new facilities.
There were other visitors from many different countries, and we met a group of Australians who had been at the same wedding reception as ourselves. Certainly the Chapel is bringing people from far and wide, providing a significant boost to the Scottish tourist industry. It is to be hoped that some of them also find time to enjoy the walk in Roslin Glen, and other hiking trails in the locality. Unfortunately that particular day wasn't a good one for hiking far from the Chapel. I would have to wait for a couple of weeks.
Go to Roslin Glen and Rosslyn Castle walking story>
POSTSCRIPT - After seeing the movie of "The Da Vinci Code"
Maggie, Catriona and I had all read the book of the Da Vinci Code , inspired by our visit to the Chapel in early April, before the film was released on 19 May. We wanted to see what Director Ron Howard had done with the story - and with the final scenes at Roslin. It's hard to comment on the film as such, since having the words of the book still in our heads distorted our impressions, leading us to recognise most of the conversations and think about those bits that had been edited out. The medium of film clearly placed constraints on what can be included from a 600-page book, and sometimes it seems to skip too quickly from one brief scene to another.
On the coverage of Roslin - presented in the book as a significant name derived from the "Rose Line" which purportedly ran through the site - suffice to say that the location features strongly at the end. There are shots of the splendid exterior - worth seeing it without the metal canopy. The fabulous stonework inside doesn't really get much exposure, but the stars and flowers in the ceiling are shown, and there's an important scene in the simpler sacristy down the stairs. And then, a bit of artistic licence.......(go and see it!).
It's also worth emphasising that there's a lengthy scene down at the bridge leading to the old castle ruins and the surviving castle house. You can enjoy the same view over Roslin Glen from the bridge that Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou experienced, although you may have difficulty seeing the Chapel in quite as prominent a position as it appears in the movie! So, you need to go to the linked story of the walk to Rosslyn Castle and Roslin Glen to see photos of these locations. And to find the Da Vinci Code Puzzle.
(POSTSCRIPT ADDED 20 MAY 2006)
Rosslyn Chapel official website includes some fascinating historical information about the Chapel organised around key dates, and background on several prominent stonecarvings. It also gives details of admission times and prices - well worth a visit!
Go to Roslin Glen walking story>
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