Rosslyn Chapel

"This building, I believe, may be pronounced unique, and I am confident it will be found curious, elaborate and singularly interesting, impossible to designate by any given or familiar term." When Britton wrote this entry on Rosslyn Chapel, situated seven miles outside Edinburgh, in his Architectural Antiquities of Britain in 1812, he would have little idea that many years later the Chapel would indeed become an extremely popular addition to Scotland's already extensive tourist attractions.

But even he would no doubt be surprised to see a 96 per cent increase in its visitors in little over a year. So popular is the attraction that it was even recently announced that there would be a ban on unsupervised trips to protect its fragile carvings from increased humidity and contact.

Britton also added that the building's "variety and eccentricity are not to be defined by any words of common acceptation" - something that would be seen as a fair assessment by some critics of the novel that has caused such a massive increase in pilgrimages to the historical site.

With 17 million copies sold and a planned Hollywood adaptation, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has caused widespread controversy since its publication in 2003.

The thriller centres around a murder among an ancient secret society and the trail leads to the chapel which has become the focus of a great deal of this attention and has been linked to the Knights Templar, the legend of the Holy Grail and freemasonry.

Well before this, the Chapel was graced by many a famous visitor over the centuries - from royalty past and present from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip to Prince Charles, The Queen Mother, Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Victoria - as well as literary figures such as Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, and Samuel Johnson.

It was founded in 1446 by Sir William St Clair, third and last St Clair Prince of Orkney, and is in fact only part of the choir of what was intended to be a larger cruciform building with a tower at its centre. After Sir William died in 1484, he was buried in the unfinished Chapel and the larger building he had planned was never completed.

To control numbers and avoid overcrowding this summer, the chapel trust will allow only hourly guided tours. If you want to take a look for yourself, it is open daily between 10 and 5, and on Sundays between 12 noon and 4:45pm. Entry is £5 for adults, £4 for concessions and children under 18 go free.

The following holiday cottages are relevant to this article:

Rosslyn Cottage - Roslin, Near Edinburgh - Sleeps 6

Peffermill House - Edinburgh - Sleeps 5 (max 7)

Dowies Mill - Cramond, Edinburgh - Sleeps 2

Silvermills - Edinburgh - Sleeps 5

Belford Mews - Edinburgh - Sleeps 2 (this property is available for short breaks - minimum 2 nights)

~~ Rosslyn Chapel ~~

Rosslyn Chapel