A few miles south of Edinburgh, in Midlothian, is Rosslyn Chapel, the 15th century Collegiate Church of St Matthew.
The chapel is unique. There are thousands of medieval stone carvings: dragons, green men, unicorns, gargoyles, lions and griffons - even an elephant, a camel and a monkey. There are fabulous creatures and grotesques from medieval bestiaries.
Rosslyn Chapel gives us a chance to discover what people believed 500 years ago. There is a medieval Mouth of Hell, and a depiction of the Seven Deadly Sins, angels and devils, saints and sinners, knights and minstrels, kings and queens, and a heavenly host of musicians.
Pillars and arches were filled with leaves, vines, fruit and flowers. The stone ceiling includes a field of stars, the sun, and a crescent moon.
The chapel was built for William Sinclair, third Earl of Orkney, Earl of Caithness and Baron of Roslin. He was the Scottish ambassador to France and was married to Elisabeth Douglas, daughter of the Duke of Touraine. They were devout Catholics who wanted to build a chapel where they could worship and where they would finally be buried and spend eternity until Judgement Day.
The chapel was attacked by a Protestant mob during the Scottish Reformation. Eventually it fell to ruin. Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, James Boswell, Dr Samuel Johnson, William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, and Queen Victoria all visited the ruins of Rosslyn Chapel.
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