If ever a church could audition for Hollywood, Rosslyn Chapel would get the part. Recently dubbed Scotland’s answer to the Pyramids, the chapel attracts almost as wide a clientèle as those other mysterious wonders of the world - scaled down somewhat but, for enthusiasts, no less fascinating. On the 2 April 1998, H.R.H. Prince Charles officially opened a new visitors centre, housing not only an exhibition on the chapel but, in due course, a section dedicated to masonic and Templar aficianados, along with a purpose-built car park. Yet amid all the hype and speculation, many will wonder just what exactly is the truth behind this mysterious edifice? Was this really the final resting place for a hunted order of medieval warrior monks escaping from the east? Did the Knights Templar really place secret heretical scrolls pertaining to the true identity of Christ in its subterranean vaults? And what lies behind the Chapel’s famous Prentice Pillar and the tale of the murdered apprentice mason?
    Interest in Rosslyn Chapel is itself a phenomenon and, as Stewart Beattie, Director of the Rosslyn Trust, says, everyone is free to project their own ideas onto the structure. To some it has become a beacon for extra-terrestrials, while a new book is reportedly coming out stating that Christ’s skull is under the chapel! People need a place of pilgrimage and Rosslyn has glamour : hints of masonic secrets and Templar-involvement, undeciphered imagery, and Green Men - over 120 of them. (Psychologists note that we do have a goodly number of ‘green men’ these days, popping up from under prospective road and airport sites, earthy matter pouring from the nostrils in quixotic efforts to forestall the machinery of ‘progress’). As if all this were not enough, there may well be 20 Rosslyn barons buried beneath the chapel. Beattie says : “I have no particular belief one way or the other.” A few years ago, a sonar scan was done on the chapel, but the readings did not reveal anything. “If any future excavation is undertaken, it will be after consultation with the Trustees and Historic Scotland.” So what do we know for sure?

William Sinclair

Roslin (current spelling for the village) is an old mining centre south of Edinburgh, lying half-way between Penicuik and Lasswade. The chapel stands at the end of a small lane, where the land rises to greet the Pentland Hills. The foundation stone was laid in 1446 by William Sinclair, the third and last Prince of Orkney. The construction work continued for forty years. William Sinclair appears to have acted as the Master of Works himself, as it was recorded how he caused the drafts to be drawn upon East-land boards, so the carpenters could make templates from them, before the masons could reproduce the tracings in stone. (Tracings can still be seen in the crypt or sacristy.) It is believed that the Chapel was intended to be a part of a much larger edifice but, most probably for financial reasons, it was never completed.
    Inside, from its barrel vaulted ceiling, to every roof rib, capital, corbel, boss or arch, the chapel is encrusted with sculptured freestone, the eye being constantly drawn to yet another biblical allegory, strange shaped star or leering Green Man. The damp air seems conducive to their growth.
    The eastern end is distinguished by three unusual pillars, reminiscent of Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, although lunar symbolism may have been intended, as arrangements such as this can be found at Carthage, representing the great mother goddess and the three phases of the moon. It is the strikingly ornate pillar standing in the south that captures the eye, spiralling upwards from the eight dragons about its base.
    According to legend, the master mason who intended to carve it travelled to Rome with plans of its proposed design, only to discover upon his return that his apprentice had completed the work in exquisite fashion (an allegory for the Reformation?). In a furious rage of jealousy, the master slew the apprentice, from whence the ‘Prentice Pillar’ is alleged to have earned its name. Despite this tale, the origins of the name are unclear. There is evidence of ‘alabastermen’ working in the north of England in the 15th century, attached to various workshops. One of the best known ateliers for such work was the firm of Prentys and Sutton of Chellaston, who possessed their own quarry and workshop.
    In the recent work The Hiram Key, the authors suggested that the pillar, together with a head carved in the chapel displaying a gash on the forehead, is related to Freemasonry’s legendary figure, Hiram Abiff, the martyred craftsman of Solomon’s Temple. However, the biblical Hiram does not die, and the earliest known appearance of the Hiramic legend is in 1730. The idea itself was not uncommon, and was perhaps employed to express an archetype of sacrifice and rebirth, the ritual murder of father, master or king in fertility rites. The famous rose window at Rouen Cathedral is said to have been executed by an apprentice whose master, out of jealousy, knocked his brains out with a hammer. Other tales include an apprentice bracket at Gloucester Cathedral, an apprentice minaret at the mosque in Damietta, and I was told of another version during a recent visit to the great mosque in Damascus. Speculative possibilities are not exhausted.
    Rosslyn’s pillar may depict the world tree of Nordic legend, Yggdrasil, the fountain of eternal life and immortality. In the boughs : the eagle and serpent, forces of light and darkness, in perpetual conflict. Odin sacrificed himself and hung for nine nights from Yggdrasil, which represented a regenerative and sacrificial tree, thus forming an obvious parallel with Christ upon the cross - both were pierced with a spear. The capital above the pillar echoes the myth, being carved with the figure of Isaac. The serpents at its base may then represent Nidhogger the ‘Dread Biter’, gnawing at its root, symbolising the malevolent forces of the universe. For the Sinclair family with their Norman and Scandanavian roots, such parallels may have been congenial. Adjacent to the capital is a lintel, relevant to various masonic side degrees, carved with an inscription from the Book of Ezra and telling of the rebuilding of the second Temple under Zerubbabel, the inscription derived from his speech to Darius which earned the right to rebuild the Temple : “Wine is strong, women are stronger, but truth conquers all”’.
    Despite recent speculation, there is no evidence for a Templar connection between the chapel and the Sinclair family, although there was a much older chapel once on this site, of which very little is known. The St. Clairs came from Normandy, and held land on the Pentland Hills from the the twelfth century. By 1500, the family were viewed by craft organisations in Scotland as hereditary patrons. Thirty years after the split with Rome, the Catholic owner of Rosslyn resisted pressure to tear down his altars, a move eventually forced upon him in 1592. Yet, despite opposition to the Presbytery, William was still claiming patronage of the masons’ craft many years later, as can be guaged from two 17th century charters. In the 1690’s, the bond between the Sinclairs and the masons illuminated a famous letter :

“They are obliged to receive the masons’ word and which is a secret signal masons have throughout the world to know one another by.”

In November 1736, when the Grand Lodge of Scotland was formed in Edinburgh, with Sir William Sinclair becoming the first Scottish Grand Master, he was obliged to sign a declaration, as head of the family at Roslin, resigning in perpetuity the family’s hereditary patronage of the Scottish craft.
    The chapel is currently undergoing a programme of conservation which, as Stewart Beattie informed me, will continue for the next five years. Despite the scaffolding, the chapel’s interior remains serene, and for masons and non-masons alike, Rosslyn Chapel offers a tantalising journey into the elusive minds of the craftsmen who built it. God knows what they were trying to achieve.

Matthew Scanlan would like to thank Michael Baigent, Robert Brydon and Stewart Beattie for their help in producing this article.