We first drove down to Melrose Abbey to show Judi the Border Abbeys. This is where my ancestor, Michael Scott the Wizard, is buried and where we found the bagpipe-playing pig. Also where we spent a week at the Pear Cottage right next door.
Then we drove over to Dryburgh Abbey (from 1150) to see the graves, the chapter house, the yew tree, and the grave of Sir Walter Scott, his wife, his son, and his stepson. There is a HUGE lime tree that just amazes me every time I see it. I thought limes grew on short bushes. We headed over to Scott’s View, but it was raining so just a quick stop, then on to Smailholm Tower, which would have been a hike up some very slippery grass and mud, so we just saw it from a distance then drove back through Sandyknowe Farm, where Sir Walter Scott’s grandfather used to live.
Then we had lunch at Roslin Glen Hotel—delicious paninis and ginger beer—before going down to Rosslyn. It was very exciting because after 13 ½ years, Rosslyn Chapel finally has the covering taken off of the building! For all those years, it has been covered by a metal shed and scaffolding to help dry out the roof and pillars. In the 1950s, someone had the “great” idea of covering everything inside with cement paint to protect it. Only problem is that the paint sealed in the moisture and the church began to crumble! They are trying to decide the best way to handle the removal of the paint, but the first step was to dry out the stone, therefore, the metal covering. It was so good to see the chapel the way it was meant to be seen.
Inside, we were able to see the ceiling for the first time!!! It is covered in roses and stars of stone. In a thirty minute talk, our guide told us the story of Rosslyn and the Sinclairs, the owners, and the carvings and their significance. There are many and varied claims about the secret that Rosslyn Chapel is supposed to hold. Anything from “The One True Cross.” To Jesus’s head being hiddenin the apprentice pillar, to the Holy Grail in the cryopt, to the theory that the secret of Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s children is hidden in the structure of the chapel itself. Someone thinks that some of the carvings are musical notes that when played will reveal the secret.
The Sinclairs are mum on all of this. The crypt has been closed for 300 years and they say the world isn’t ready to hear its secrets. The site of the chapel has been of significance since Pictish times. The chapel was built between 1446 and 1484 as a private family chapel by Sir William St. Clair Sinclair. What was built is only the choir portion of what was supposed to be a much larger chapel of cross-shape. It has suffered greatly over the years, most importantly during the Scottish Reformation and during the Civil War in 1650 when Oliver Cromwell’s troops attacked Rosslyn Castle and stabled his horses in the Chapel. From 1688 to 1736, the chapel was abandoned and locked up.
At least one of the Sinclairs was a Knight Templar. William St. Clair, who died in Spain in 1330 while attempting to escort the heart of Robert the Bruce to the Holy Land, has a tomb inscribed with the words KNIGHT TEMPLAR on it in the sacristy downstairs.
Interesting facts about Rosslyn:
---stone carvings of maize and agave cactuses in this chapel built BEFORE Columbus discovered America (the only place maize and agave cactuses are known to be) point to truth in the legend that Prince Henry Sinclair sailed to America before Columbus in 1398 and visited Nova Scotia and Massachusetts. There has recently been found in Westford, Massachusetts, the effigy of a knight that is believed to be Sir Henry.
---there are around 110 Green Men in Rosslyn Chapel, more than anywhere else in the world. Green Men are stone carvings of men’s heads with vines growing out of their mouths.
---there are 2 Knights Templar brothers shown on horseback in the bottom left corner of the window in the chapel’s South aisle.
---our guide told us the story of how a St. Clair knight brought back on horseback from the Holy Land a Princess and a piece of the True Cross of Christ (the Holy Rood). This princess turned out to be St. Margaret who had a son, David I, who went on to become King.
---Rosslyn Chapel has the only carved, barrel-vaulted solid stone medieval roof in Scotland.
---Andrew Sinclair says that the Templars had 2 Grails—the Shroud of Turin and the Veil of Veronica (the one Christ wiped his face upon on the way to his crucifixion.
---Rosslyn Chapel is mentioned in poetry by Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott.
---a 17th century charter dubbed the St. Calirs the hereditary Grand Masters of Scottish Freemasonry.
---the crypt of Rosslyn Chapel is said to be guarded by Sir William and 19 other St. Clairs in Knights Templar armor. A scan of the sealed off crypt showed metal in the shape of men.
---someone wrote that there is a window of Jesus and Mary Magdalene getting married here, but I didn’t see it.
Judi and I used the chart to find all the stone carvings of significance. No one is allowed to take pictures of any kind inside the chapel, so I have no pictures of the really cool stuff. : (
The guide mentioned that high above our heads, there is a keystone that is pointing downwards like an arrow. It points to where the Holy Grail is supposed to be in the crypt below the chapel. She said that some people who stand on the stone where the arrow points feel a warmth or a vibration. Judi and Ray stood on the stone—nothing. I stood on the one next to it and felt nothing, but did it to compare, and sure enough when I stepped on the real stone, it did feel different. Sort of a humming, tightening feel to it. But I couldn’t get them to believe me if I tried for a thousand years. Of course, I do have a very good imagination.
Ray pointed out a plaque on the building just outside the entrance to the visitor’s center that said it was the Old Rosslyn Inn and that King Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales, and Dr. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, all stayed here along with Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Robert Burns, and Sir Walter Scott. We walked down the path past the graveyard and the stone bench with the “boar’s head” tree trunk to Rosslyn Castle from the 1330s—the site of one of the last scenes from the Da Vinci Code. This time, there was even water to test our ability to walk upon it in the form of huge puddles in the center of the path, but no one showed this remarkable ability.
Pictures from top: Smailholm Tower—my family towerhouse castle; Leaderfoot Viaduct outside Melrose; inside Roslin Glen Hotel where we had lunch; Rosslyn Chapel without her scaffolding; stone bench on the way to Rosslyn Castle.
