The latest post in my series about Scotland, the second time around. To read the other posts, start here.
Edinburgh contains many sites to discover—the Castle, the museums, and the Royal Mile, to name a few. But there are a few destinations a short drive away that are also worth exploring. Seven miles away from the city center and close to the Scottish Borders lies Rosslyn Chapel.
Rosslyn Chapel
Back view
In 1446, Sir William St Clair, 11th Baron of Rosslyn and Prince of Orkney, had a dream to build a great cathedral. He founded the Collegiate Church of St Matthew for his family and began work on the Chapel, which took forty years to build and became known as Rosslyn Chapel. Complete with flying buttresses and pointed, arched windows, the chapel was built in the Gothic style, which arose out of France and spread throughout medieval Europe.
Made of sandstone, the chapel’s exterior is multi-colored. According to the website:
All the sandstone is of the same origin. The colours come from the deposits within each stone. For example, the red sandstone contains iron oxide, while the yellow has calcium-based deposits.
I loved the look of the sandstone and took a couple dozen photos of the different colors.
Through the years, countless visitors to the Chapel like us have benefitted from the extensive restoration and conservation work on both inside and outside.
Inside the chapel, St Clair’s team of stonemasons created hundreds of elaborate carvings of both religious and pagan symbolism. The tour guide pointed out several of them as well as explaining the history of the chapel, including information about movie scenes filmed here. The written guide includes a map of the chapel and photos of the most famous carvings to help you find them. It makes for a bit of treasure hunt. (Photography wasn’t allowed inside the chapel, so be sure to check out the links above.)
Two other sites we visited that day were Abbottsford, the home of novelist, poet, and historian Sir Walter Scott, and Melrose Abbey, a partial ruin of the monastery where the heart of Robert the Bruce is buried. I will write about them in more detail in a future post in this series.
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