Rosslyn Chapel

We walked here from the bus stop on a gorgeous day. Don't forget the village is called Rosslin - different spelling than the chapel and castle - should you want to come here as well. :)

Edit: We weren't allowed to take photos inside, so that's why there are none. Shame, it would've been awesome. There was a lot of scaffolding put up inside, so the ceiling wasn't visible, but well worth a visit none the less.

Interesting tidbit - the chapel is in private ownership, still in the hands of the descendents of the original family that built it.
Lots of restoration work going on, including the roof being entirely covered by another metal roof to protect it (since 1997).
The scaffolding on the outside may have negatively impacted the pictures of the chapel but it gave us the wonderful opportunity to climb up and see close at hand, some of the intricate carvings and details along the upper roof line. This was a lot of fun (though very windy).

Rosslyn Chapel, or the Collegiate Chapel of St Matthew as it was to have been called, was founded in 1446 by Sir William St Clair, 3rd and last St Clair Prince of Orkney. He died in 1484 and the original plans for a large collegiate church were never completed. Only the chapel had been started and the foundations of the church laid.

The St Clairs were of mixed heritage, Viking and Norman.
Sir William's grandfather was a famous seafarer who reputed voyaged to the New World before Christopher Columbus.
The Micmac Indians of East Coast have in their verbal history, tales of a red haired man and his companions that came to them from over the sea and taught them to fish with nets. Many of the carvings in the chapel are flora and fauna native to North America (one of them corn).
The amount of carvings within the chapel are varied - seafarers' traditions, freemasory, Norman aristocracy, viking clans, pagan beliefs, christian beliefs, green men and if it is to be believed - the Knights Templar.
Though this chapel was built 140 years after the Order of the Templar Knights had been suppressed. so who knows? The theories are overwhelming, but then so are the carvings.
I know I had a sore neck the next day from trying to see everything on the walls and ceiling. So much crammed into one small space and so worth the visit.
I liked this one since it looks like there is a hand coming out of the stone, holding the leaves.


Though it's hard to see, there is a huge face here - and someone has made a nest in his head!
Through the trees you can see the top of Rosslin Castle - we'll go there later.
We found a Canadian quarter on the ground under this fellow, and so we took it back up and threw it back into it's head - it ended up falling right back out his mouth!

Here is the road that leads up to Rosslin Castle. You might recognize the following pictures from the DaVinci Code, where parts of the movie was filmed.
Most of the following information is copy-pasted from Wikipedia, so if you want to read the original information go here.

Roslin Castle is a partially ruined castle near the village of Roslin in Midlothian, Scotland. It is located around 9 miles south of Edinburgh, on the north bank of the North Esk, only a few hundred metres from the famous Rosslyn Chapel.
The remains of the gatehouse and north range comprise only fragments of walls and one side of the entrance arch, with the remains of a bartizan above. Along the west side of the castle, the 15th-century curtain wall remains standing to a considerable height. This section of wall has six openings at the base, one of which served as a postern gate. On the outer face, the six bays are divided by rounded buttresses. Old sketches of Roslin show bartizans above each of these buttresses, with a wall-walk connecting them.

To the south of this wall is the remaining wall of the keep. The mound beneath is formed from the collapsed remnants of the other three walls. The ruin suggests that the keep was around 16m by 12m, with walls 2.9m thick rising to a machicolated parapet.

The castle stands precipitously above a loop of the River North Esk, which protects it on three sides. This rocky promontory was breached on the north side to form a ditch giving further protection. The castle is approached from Roslin across this ditch, via a precipitous bridge and through the ruined gatehouse.

There has been a castle on the site since the early 14th century, when the Sinclair family, Earls of Caithness and Barons of Roslin, fortified the site, although the present ruins are of slightly later date. Following destruction during the War of the Rough Wooing of 1544, the castle was rebuilt. This structure, built into the cliffs of Roslin Glen, has remained at least partially habitable ever since. The castle is accessed via a high bridge, which replaced an earlier drawbridge. Roslin was renovated in the 1980s and now serves as holiday accommodation.
And yes, I peeked into the windows of the house. Looks like they are a fancy people, and have a bust of some kind.
This is the house, looking back towards the road.
Yep, that's the bridge you've got to walk back over. It's quite high up.

This was walking back towards the highway where we caught our bus. It was a lovely sight, over the Scottish countryside.

Rosslyn Chapel and castle was also a well-worth stop from Edinburgh and again, a quick and easy visit from the city centre.