O'er moorland and brae: Jealousy, devotion and savagery

Rosslyn Chapel was enroute as we left Edinburgh so we called in for a wee visit. The Chapel was built for family worship and it was consecrated Catholic, but after the Scottish Reformation, worship there had to stop, though the Sinclair family who built it, remained Catholic for centuries after that.

The chapel wasn't started until William Sinclair had houses built for all his craftsmen. It, then, was never completed, though no one is sure why. But it is a gem of a little chapel, particularly famous for the tale of its apprentice who carved one of its church pillars.

The master of the Chapel stonework, having returned from his quest seeking inspiration for the pillar work, found that his apprentice had gone ahead and completed the pillar anyway, without needing such inspiration. So jealous and so enraged was the master that he took up his mallet and smashed it down hard on the head of his young apprentice, killing him instantly. It is said, that after that, the face of the master mason was carved high into the opposite corner of the chapel, to forever look down upon the exquisite work of his young apprentice. A fine vengeance.

Rosslyn Chapel has inspired many many tales: that the Sinclairs were related to Jesus Christ; that the crypt contains the mummified head of Jesus; or even hides the Holy Grail. On the stories go. Dan Brown hinted at a Knight's Templar connection in his mention of Rosslyn Chapel in The Da Vinci Code: a brief but timely reference that has paid off fortuitously for the Chapel trust. Visitors used to call in only sporadically. Now, after that publicity, hundreds of thousands come each year. Which is great for the restoration fund and the improvement work that is ongoing.

Further on, we came across another gorgeous little chapel at a place called New Abbey. This is now a ruin, but a really beautiful ruin. It is deep red, blood red, sandstone, and was built by the wife of John Balliol, the founder of Balliol College in Oxford, in his memory.

John died too soon, and bereft, Devorguilla had his heart embalmed, to be buried with her before the high altar, some twenty-one years later when she died. The Abbey she built for them soon came to be called Sweetheart Abbey, and it was her devotion to John that brought the word 'sweetheart' into the English language.

While we were walking down the main street in New Abbey, we found a carving grooved into the wall of a tiny white washed cottage as it was constructed. This carving is said to be of three of the women who were employed to ferry the red stone from the quarry to the site for the construction of Sweetheart Abbey. Another lovely and singular piece. They look like nuns.

The last castle we visited in Scotland is, today, another ruin, Threave Castle. We have been following the stories of some of the Highland clans this trip, but thought, before we left, to explore a Lowland clan family. And what a gruesome and blood-thirsty lot they turned out to be, these 'Black' earls of Douglas.

The approach to the castle is by a long walk through rustic fields with ospreys swooping on high before you reach a jetty where there is a wee bell which you ring to let the oarsman know you need a boat to carry you across the pretty lake to the castle on an small island. The setting is exquisite. Though Threave Castle was never really huge and today is little more than a keep.

It was built by Archibald the Grim, at a time when the clan were notorious for their brutality and savagery. Vanquished foes were liberally hung from the gallows knob at the front of Threave, a reminder to all what happened to an enemy of the Douglases, and Archibald once boasted that the hanging knob "never lacked a tassle". We got the message. We did not spend long at Threave.

In the midst of all this we had an afternoon visiting Robert Smail's Printing Works, a National Trust property, in Inverleithen. This is a nineteenth century printery which has been acquired and now maintained by the NT, in pretty much the same fashion as the Family Smail left it, after many generations of printing in this town; and without ever changing much at all.

The printery has a functioning typeset floor, where all the letters to be used for newsletters, posters, calendars, bulletins, and suchlike, are first laid onto a compositor's stick before being spaced into a rack, called the forme, which holds all the letters needed before the inking and printing process takes place.

We were able to set our own name and ink ourselves a bookmark while we were there. To be frank your brain needs to work in a topsy turvy fashion to do this effectively, as the letters have to be laid upside down to be printed correctly. Luckily, there is a little groove on each letter or space you use that needs to line up to show the exact direction for the pieces you are laying down. Expert users do it so fluidly it looks easy.

Printing is done downstairs on wonderful old clamshell presses that all still function. One of them is even hand pedalled. We were lucky enough to see all the heavy metal in operation, and how dangerous some of the machines could be. One of the paper guillotines could quickly slice a thousand pages in one go. It would not be fun to forget any part of your anatomy before you lowered the blade.

There is so much to this Printery. There is even a museum of the most amazing detail and records from the history of the business and we all could have spent so much more time there, but it got to be closing time and we had to leave. We can't wait to find more of these functioning industrial sites where we might learn exactly how things were made, back in the day. We loved this one.