Rosslyn Chapel: A Treasure in Stone

For the past 500 years, few places have stirred the imagination more

than a beautiful and mysterious building in Scotland

called Rosslyn Chapel.

CHOIR SINGS

Some legends claim it has links with secretive organisations

such as the Freemasons or the Knights Templar.

One extravagant theory even suggests that, buried within the chapel,

is the holy grail of Christ.

Whatever the truth of these claims, over the centuries,

countless writers and artists have found inspiration

in the extraordinary stone carvings here at Rosslyn,

once described as "a poem of stone, powdered with stars."

My name's Helen Rosslyn,

and the chapel's been in my husband's family since it was built.

As an art historian, I'm fascinated by the stories behind works of art.

To solve some of Rosslyn's mysteries

and to reveal the meanings behind these carvings,

I'm going to get closer to the stonework than anyone has in years.

I'll visit sites across Scotland

to learn more about the art of medieval stonemasonry.

And I'll also travel to the continent

to search for the Norman origins of the men who built Rosslyn Chapel.

And what inspired them to create such a remarkable treasure in stone.

Rosslyn Chapel's greatest attraction

is the extraordinary beauty of its stonework.

Many of these inspiring carvings are religious narratives.

Yet the meaning behind some of them has been forgotten.

And very little is known about

the medieval stonemasons who created them.

Just what influenced these largely forgotten artists to cover

the chapel with so many intricate carvings is shrouded in mystery.

Rosslyn Chapel lies about eight miles south of Edinburgh.

It was built as a family chapel in the middle of the 15th century

by Sir William St Clair, 11th Baron of Rosslyn, and Prince of Orkney.

By the 17th century, the chapel had fallen into ruins.

But in 2003, it became famous worldwide

when it featured prominently in The Da Vinci Code.

I always love coming into this chapel

because I'm absolutely amazed by the carving.

It's on every single surface.

Which sort of makes you feel as though you're stepping right into

a three-dimensional medieval sculpture.

It's been called a bible in stone,

which is hardly surprising because it is a chapel.

And one of the really interesting things about the carvings

is that they would have been done in an age when people couldn't really read.

And so a lot of the moral stories, like this one here,

were done in stone to remind people of how they should behave.

And here we've got the seven virtues,

and on the other side of the same flat arch,

we've got the seven deadly sins.

You can see a man standing, deciding

whether he's going to follow the virtues,

and end up with St Peter at the gates of heaven.

And the things he has to do, the seven virtues,

are helping the needy, clothing the naked.

And then you've got visiting the sick,

with a bed and a sick person in it.

After that, you've got visiting those in prison.

And that's incredible, the detail there.

If you look really carefully,

you can even see a face behind bars in the prison.

And then there is feeding the hungry.

And burying the dead.

And the reward is St Peter.

Standing with the key at the gates of heaven.

On the other side, we have...

the seven deadly sins.

You have pride, gluttony.

Anger, there, with the man and his axe.

Now, the most interesting thing for me about this

is that one of the stones is the wrong way round.

This could have been just a simple human error,

but you can see that charity there, with the two figures,

is the wrong way round amongst the seven deadly sins.

And on the other side, you've got greed or avarice

amongst the virtues.

So, it was probably just a simple case of human error.

The poor stonemason who carved the wrong scene

on the wrong side of the stone had to put it in anyway,

it would only fit one way round,

and he just hoped nobody would notice.

Virtually every surface tells a different moral tale.

One of the hidden gems in this chapel

is this stone depiction of the dance of death.

Which was also often called the "danse macabre",

because it came really from France,

and it reflects the medieval preoccupation with mortality.

Each of the figures here taken from different walks of life

is shown the skeleton

to indicate that death always wins out in the end.

But many of Rosslyn's medieval carvings

have been covered by modern scaffolding for over a decade.

The chapel's been undergoing a £9-million conservation programme.

In the aftermath of the Reformation, Rosslyn fell into disrepair.

But by the late 18th century, the romantic overgrown ruins

had become an inspiration for

artists like David Roberts and Turner

as well as writers like Wordsworth, Burns, and Sir Walter Scott.

Although there were some early attempts to

restore and repair the place,

centuries of foul Scottish weather caused severe damage.

So, for the past 13 years, we've been trying to dry it out

by covering it with this 50-ton steel roof.

As the Countess of Rosslyn and the chairman of the Rosslyn Chapel Trust

I've been closely involved with the conservation programme.

When I first came here nearly 30 years ago,

the stone was so saturated

that water was literally running down the inside of the chapel walls.

So we had to do something dramatic to make the building watertight.

The first thing we did was to put on this protective canopy.

And the second phase, which we're doing at the moment,

is to fix the roof, the leaky windows,

and the rather eccentric medieval drainage system.

So that's why this building is such a hive of activity,

because, in the next couple of months, hopefully,

the canopy is about to come off.

The latest conservation techniques focus on preserving

as much of the detail of the original stonework as possible -

and learning from some of the mistakes of the past.

In the 1950s, the walls were so damp

that a decision was taken to clean the internal stonework

and coat it with magnesium fluoride, also known as cementitious slurry.

Done with the best of intentions, it had the unforeseen consequence

of obscuring much of the original detail.

The man in charge of the conservation team, Nic Boyes,

has unearthed some old footage of the unfortunate process going on.

All right, what I'm really keen to show you now

is work that was done during the 1950s by the Ministry of Works.

OK, so we're really focusing on the interior of the chapel.

So this is the application of the cementitious slurry

that we always hear about, is it?

Well, yes, it is the application of the surface treatment.

Here you can see we've got a man

who's actually cleaning there, I think.

So he's got a small paintbrush.

This is very similar to the work we were doing.

Now we have this guy, happy in his work, is applying,

you can see just how he's doing it.

He's using a three-inch paintbrush and he's stippling material on.

-And that's exactly the material that we can see now.

-Right.

-That white stuff.

-Yeah.

This is the moment when the surface of the stone,

as we were intended to view it by the carver, is over-painted.

And so there's a fantastic view of that angel figure.

Without the coating on it.

And you can see just how crisp, just how...legible

that carve detail is.

To them, that's beautifully smartened and, you know...

But the thinking behind it, presumably,

was that they would just stop the stone crumbling.

-Which was what prompted them to do it?

-That was part of it.

OK, so, they were responding to a decayed stone surface.

But they were also responding to the fact they obviously could see

there was water coming in through the building.

There was this really sort of unpleasant visual result of that.

There would be dead biological growth, live biological growth,

it would have been blotchy.

So they would have applied several layers of this thing?

Which is why it looks so thick

-and why so much of the detail of the carving's lost?

-Exactly. Yeah.

In fact, when we go and have a close look at it, you can actually

still see the brushmarks, you can see just how thickly it's been applied.

In an attempt to reveal the detail of the original carvings,

Nic and his team have done some tests

to remove the magnesium fluoride.

But unfortunately, the techniques available at the moment

risk damaging the stonework even more.

I am now very aware of our responsibility

to ensure that the conservation techniques we choose

will not prove someday to cause more harm than good.

For the conservation work, we haven't just had scaffolding

on the outside of the chapel, we've had it on the inside as well.

It might be a temporary disappointment for visitors,

but it allows us to get a close-up look at the astonishing stonework

of the chapel's medieval masons.

Oh, Nic! Spectacular.

I can't believe it.

We're so close to all this beautiful carving.

So, where are we heading?

Well, let's have a look at this.

Oh, yes, look!

There is so much detail.

I mean, all that carving on the cuff there, and these fingernails.

It matches the one on the other side, doesn't it, which is superb.

I mean, we are more than 35 feet from the ground here.

So, you can imagine, none of this

was carved with the intention of being viewed closely.

No, I think that's what's so astounding,

and yet, they haven't spared any detail at all.

I mean, even above the cross there,

you've got that bit of detailed engraving.

And, of course, we have seen the footage taken during the 1950s,

of a man exactly here using a paintbrush

to remove that loose material from each of these flowers.

I've never seen that before.

I love the way all these ribs are completely different.

I mean, the decoration on this

is completely different from the decoration on that

and the one at the end, look.

What else is there in this bay?

I love the different carving here.

Look, there is another face.

And that's a really different face, look.

It's a really calm, serene face, but quite plain.

-That's quite interesting.

-It's very enigmatic.

What is particularly interesting to me,

-just emerging there is an oyster shell.

-Oh, really?

It's a really well-known construction technique of the 15th century,

to pack construction joints with oyster shells.

You can really see it well.

The reason for that is it reduces the mass of mortar.

We still do that nowadays. On the outside of this roof,

we've done exactly the same thing, albeit with a different material.

And look at this level. This is a great level, actually,

because you get the light coming in so beautifully from the windows.

It's lovely to be able to get a chance to see some of this detail.

This must be one of the tops of the niches of the statues.

I mean, I have never noticed it was so incredibly detailed,

-all this carving.

-Precisely.

Beautiful chevron detail, is virtually invisible from down below.

If you can see...

There are these ball-flower motifs.

They are beautifully spaced.

There is an exquisite rhythm to them

all the way up until you get to this construction joint.

And there you can see somebody has made a small error.

But for me, that's the charm of this building,

-because it's its individuality.

-Yes.

And then, just above it, is Christ with his hand raised in blessing,

which I've seen from down below but I've never managed to see here.

And again, just like up above,

you have got the detail on his cuffs which I haven't seen before.

So, it is probably fair to say, with the exception of the 1950s workmen,

probably the only other people who would have seen this carving

in this place are the masons who put it there?

Yes, that is entirely possible.

This is a really fascinating carving with three heads.

And they are so detailed again but they are really different heads,

that's what is so interesting. So this here with the long hair

probably signifies somebody of nobility, I would think.

All I can say is the one on the left is certainly happy about his work!

These carvings are an impressive display

of masonry and artistic skills.

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing

about the men who created them.

To find out more about the origins of the chapel

and the men who built it, I am heading up the road to Edinburgh.

Historians agree that Rosslyn Chapel was founded in 1446,

by Sir William St Clair, the 11th Baron of Rosslyn.

But all his original papers were destroyed in a fire.

Here at the National Library of Scotland,

I've come to see historical documents expert, Julian Russell.

He's the leading authority on a manuscript previously

copied from the original 15th century accounts

of Sir William St Clair.

It was completed in 1700 by a cleric called Father Richard Hay.

Father Hay was so closely associated with the family,

wasn't he, because I know he married in... His mother married in.

His mother, yes. His father died when he was a schoolboy.

His mother married again,

and she married a member of the St Clair family.

And here he is, William St Clair, Prince of Orkney.

Oh, yes, here we are. Velvet, chains of gold.

"It came in his mind to build a house for God's service

"of most curious work.

"The foundation of this..."

-Rare work.

-"..rare work,

"he caused to be laid in the year of our Lord 1446.

"And because he thought the masons had not a convenient place

"to lodge in near the place,

"where he builded this curious college,

"therefore he made them to build the town of Rosslyn that now is extant.

"And gave every one of them a house and lands."

-Answerable there unto.

-Answerable there unto.

"So that this town, at that time, became very populous,

"so it was thought to be the chiefest town in all Lothian,

"except Edinburgh and Haddington."

So, that's rather a lovely image, isn't it?

The idea of William St Clair

creating this great town for his masons.

It is rather surprising, because you don't think of Rosslyn

-as having been such an important place.

-No.

I wondered about what they had been paid.

"He rewarded the masons according to their degree.

"As to the Master Mason,

"he gave £40 yearly, and to every one of the rest, £10."

'£10 in 1446 equates to something approaching £50,000 today.

'So the Master Mason's wage of £40 was a massive amount.

'These masons, whoever they were,

'were obviously highly valued by Sir William.'

'But how did he come to have that kind of wealth and status?'

In the year 1066,

the first St Clairs came to Britain from Normandy,

with their cousin, William the Conqueror.

But when a later descendant of the St Clairs, William the Seemly,

helped an Anglo-Saxon princess to escape north of the English border,

the King of Scotland rewarded him with the lands of Rosslyn.

Remains of the St Clairs' Castle

can still be found today close to Rosslyn Chapel.

From this bridge, you really do get an idea of the scale and grandeur

of the building as it was in Sir William St Clair's day.

Starting down by the river,

it would have been a real medieval stronghold.

It was apparently built on three sides of this courtyard here,

with a large tower in the far corner

and a really imposing gatehouse at the edge of the bridge.

Although it doesn't look like much today, in the 15th century,

it would have been one of the most imposing castles in Scotland.

The castle was started more than a century before the chapel.

And work continued on it throughout the Hundred Years War.

A conflict in which the Scots supported the French.

This close association between Scotland and France

led the lifestyles of some Scottish nobles

to become increasingly cosmopolitan.

The St Clairs enjoyed a lavish way of life with continental tastes,

and had their pick of the finest wines imported from Bordeaux.

Today, parts of the castle

still have a strongly medieval feel to them.

The lower floors haven't been touched for centuries.

And, frankly, I must admit, they look like it.

It's hard to imagine these walls were once covered

by rich tapestries, and the rooms filled with exquisite furniture.

Sadly, these rooms have become little more than damp dungeons.

Yet they must once have been the scenes of great banquets

and sumptuous living.

When Sir William St Clair inherited the title in 1420,

he used his vast wealth to expand the castle.

He hired teams of masons to build new stone walls and bridges.

But he dreamt of building a completely new and special place.

A site of extraordinary inspirational carvings

that would be unique to Scotland.

He started making plans for the construction of Rosslyn Chapel.

I often hear people comment on the modest size of the chapel,

given its massive worldwide fame.

Modest or not, it still took 40 years to build.

But sadly, Sir William died

before he could complete his ambitious architectural vision.

It was a common belief amongst wealthy nobles

that building a private church

would be rewarded by God with a passport to heaven.

Before long, a rather serious game of one-upmanship had begun,

with each noble trying to out-build the other.

Sir William certainly had no intention of being outdone by anyone.

His original plan was to build

a much more substantial Rosslyn Church,

double the length of the current Chapel.

And there are several clues to be found in the existing building.

The evidence is that we've got

this external feature of this string course,

OK, and, um... this has a job to do.

Part of the role of this piece of stone

is to protect the foot of the wall from rainwater

that will inevitably run down this external wall.

On the other side, the string course isn't there. There's no need for it.

So this is an external feature.

It's really charming to see that it's almost as though the mason

has kind of just gone off for his lunch.

So what you've got is this lovely profile continuing along here,

and then it begins to return.

-So there's the joint.

-So it does! A nice little corner.

And then it's going to come along out that way.

But, of course, it never got built.

It never, ever got that far.

So one of the obvious differences then is some of these details here.

That and then those niches, I suppose,

that would have been on the inside, if this had been the wall?

Precisely. There's nothing above that element to protect it from rainwater,

because it was never envisaged that it would be exposed to the weather.

No, of course.

So, if we progress down this wall,

we've actually got this piece here,

which was presumably where the aisle went.

It was always envisaged then

that the aisle would have continued through here.

and we'd now be standing pretty much

at the edge of the tower that was planned.

So, an enormous tower was planned.

One that could have been visible from Edinburgh, so it's written.

And it would have just gone whoosh from here.

Yes, that would have been a very impressive bit of building.

'The foundation stones of the bigger building

'extended 34 metres beyond the chapel.'

So, this is the original construction.

So this is the original wall here.

So what we're going to do is we're going to pace out that way.

Oh, yes. Right. I'll take my lead from you.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

8, 9, 10, 11,

12, 13, 14, 15,

16, 17, 18, 19, 20,

21, 22, 23, 24, 25,

26, 27, 28, 29, 30,

31, 32, 33, 34...metres.

And this is as far as the chapel was expected to extend.

Oh, I see.

I've never thought to work that out.

But even though the chapel was never completed, what it lacks in scale,

it more than makes up for in beauty and architectural significance.

There are numerous theories

about what inspired the design of Rosslyn Chapel.

Some suggest that it was built as a smaller version

of the ancient Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

But I just wonder if the truth might lie much closer to home.

I've come west to visit Glasgow Cathedral.

I've never been here before.

But the design of the cathedral's choir,

built a couple of hundred years before Rosslyn Chapel,

is said to be very similar. I've asked Brian Park,

Rosslyn's conservation architect, to show me around.

'As we walk into the choir section,

'I can hardly believe what I see before me.'

Look at this.

It is extraordinary! You really get that sense.

The layout's absolutely the same, isn't it?

What's so extraordinary is it has such a different effect.

-Soaring to the heavens.

-Indeed, indeed.

Which is not really the effect at Rosslyn.

The scale of the section is quite different,

while proportionately the plan is very similar.

The similarity between the rather dark choir area here at Glasgow

and the whitewashed chapel back at Rosslyn is striking.

There is exactly the same number of pillars

and they are in exactly the same arrangement.

It's quite interesting to think that this was started,

what, 200, 100 years before Rosslyn?

Probably closer to 200 years before Rosslyn.

Much of Glasgow Cathedral goes back to the 13th century,

and the choir here would have been extant

when Rosslyn was being constructed.

So this is a great place to stand and get a real vision

of what Sir William must have had in mind.

I mean, it was a hugely ambitious vision he must have had.

-He wanted to create something this size.

-Hugely ambitious.

If we were standing in Rosslyn,

and had Sir William built the whole thing,

we would be looking at a similar view.

So, at Rosslyn, we would now be looking now at the organ gallery.

If the nave had been built, we would have had a similar view to here.

Slightly different scale, but that sense of running right through

to the nave and a fantastic west window.

Whereas, what we actually have is a wall

-at the level of that balcony there.

-That's right.

Seeing this, it seems highly likely

that Sir William was influenced by this cathedral

when he designed Rosslyn Chapel.

After all, in Sir William's day,

Glasgow was only a two-day horse ride from Rosslyn.

But he didn't set out just to build a replica of Glasgow Cathedral.

His plans were far more ambitious than that.

Sir William got his stonemasons

to cover every single surface of his chapel

with exquisite carvings.

It's this abundance of sculptures and designs

that really sets Rosslyn Chapel apart

from almost any other building in the world.

Everywhere you look, inside and out,

are carved images upon carved images.

As one might expect in a family chapel,

there are several carvings that relate to the St Clairs.

Almost hidden from view at the back of the building

is a carving of the chapel's founder, Sir William.

Building Rosslyn also gave him the chance

to honour the important achievements of his ancestors.

Another carving depicts the first St Clair to settle in Britain,

William the Seemly, on his horse, escorting the Anglo-Saxon Princess Margaret to Scotland.

But the meanings behind some of the chapel's carvings are far from clear.

In amongst images of plants and animals,

there are strange mutant figures of mysterious so-called green men.

Some of the plant-like carvings may have been inspired by the drawings

found in the margins of medieval illuminated manuscripts.

In a chapel, you might expect to find biblical stories or moral tales,

but one of the lovely things about this place is that it's absolutely bursting with plant imagery.

Flowers, leaves. And here is a really good example.

This string course that frames the windows

has got in amongst the leaves a green man's face.

The green man is a face

with leaves traditionally coming out of its mouth

and blending into a bed of foliage behind.

And whilst they're not very common in buildings in Scotland,

we have over 100 here at Rosslyn.

There are many theories about the origins of green men.

Some say they are old pagan symbols representing nature and rebirth.

Others say they are Christian images that represented man's sinful origins in nature.

It is quite incredible to think that the Rosslyn stonemasons created

each of these carvings from rough blocks of shapeless sandstone.

It took about 10,000 such stones to construct Rosslyn Chapel.

And extracting them from the medieval quarries would have been no small feat.

To find out how the stonemasons acquired their rocks,

I'm paying a visit to Marcus Payne, director of the Hutton Stone Company.

He runs one of the last active quarries in Scotland, just 30 miles from Rosslyn.

There is quite a variation in colour in here,

from buff to a sort of bluey-grey.

So obviously you've got this modern machinery here, but is the process more or less the same?

Or is it really highly developed?

The process is virtually the same.

The large excavator replaces many men

and really is nothing more than a very large crowbar.

The actual process of working several layers back at a time,

so you reveal the top bed of each stone,

so that you can find the natural faults is exactly the same.

Today, the stone is split using a pneumatic drill.

But in the 15th century, it all had to be done manually.

We're going to split a block by hand, to show you how they would have done it.

-That's really interesting.

-The only thing we won't do, they used to split them with wooden wedges,

but they would soak them in water and leave them for days and I don't think we've time to do that.

Fair enough.

So this is how it's been split out for many, many years.

As he goes along the pins,

he's listening to hear each pin tension up,

so that they all begin to ring at the same tension,

which means the tension is even, so the split is controlled.

You can hear them starting to...

There you go. You can start to see the split.

It's starting to come along.

You can tell which ones are doing the work now.

Just that ring and also you can feel it in the handle of the hammer.

So it's doing more work.

-What a fabulous piece of stone that is.

-Yeah.

So, exciting for you then, when you find a piece that you consider is going to be a good piece of stone.

-A really big, special piece.

-To be honest, we never tire

of finding really fantastic pieces of stone.

Sometimes, we might find a piece of stone here five metres long.

And that's just a fantastic thing for us. We're still childish enough to get excited about that.

I can understand it, actually, when you see the process there.

It would have taken dozens of men several years to produce enough stones for Rosslyn Chapel.

Today, it would take a few men just a month.

But getting the rock out of the ground is only the first step.

The rocks then need be cut into neatly shaped stones

before they can be sent to the stonemasons for carving.

As winter turns to spring, the conservation work at Rosslyn picks up pace,

and I've got a chance to see some of the modern stonemasons' skills in practice.

The emphasis at Rosslyn is on preserving the existing stone carvings, not replacing them.

But one exception is a damaged tracery stone

supporting one of the stained glass windows.

Greg is the mason responsible for carving its 300 kilogram replacement.

-It's great to see it coming along so well.

-Yeah.

You've made huge progress.

-How long have you been working on this already?

-Two weeks.

These particular areas here are going to have a leafy carved finish.

-Which you'll do?

-Yeah. I'll do the whole thing.

-Fantastic.

-So this is going to take me a little while.

-What do you estimate?

-You've done two weeks already.

-I'm thinking hopefully in another three weeks.

So you're obviously a real perfectionist, then?

-Well, I....

-You must be. Look at these.

They're so beautifully done.

This is it. The craftsmanship of the original is high standard.

In those days, they had a lot of time and they had a lot of passion

for what they were doing.

I think they probably had quite a lot of religious aspects to the work.

-So they felt they were doing it for God or something?

-Perhaps.

The only difference is that I'm using tungsten to cut the stone.

In those days, it would have been just sharpened steel.

-You must get terribly achy hands with all that vibrating?

-Yeah.

I think a lot of the conception it's quite romantic to be a stonemason, carving all this stuff.

But in reality, it is very, very hard work.

You're often out in the open, in the elements. It's cold.

My hands are quite sore. Even though I've been doing this for 15 years.

At times, you does get very cramped hands and you get...

-Slip and hit yourself?

-No, it's just wear.

With the chisel resting on that part of your thumb.

-And you get a different-sized thumb!

-Oh, really?

-So, you can tell a stonemason!

-Yeah.

-But worth it?

It is. It's very satisfying, when you can create something

and stand back and think, "Well, that's going to be there for...

"I don't know how many years. It'll be here when I'm gone,"

-and that's a nice feeling.

-That's a great feeling.

-When you look up at that east window, you'll be able to think, "I did that."

-Definitely.

-Fantastic.

During the original 15th-century construction process,

there would have been several specialist masons like Greg working at Rosslyn.

But the sad fact is, we don't even know their names.

The only clues to their identities are the strange, so-called mason's marks on the stones.

They've often been thought of as something mysterious or secretive,

but in fact, they're really a bit like a painter's signature.

They're just the personal marks cut by individual masons

to identify the work they've done, to make sure they got paid for it.

The conservation team has noticed that a few of the masons' marks

resembled those from a nearby ruined monastery.

Melrose Abbey is only 30 miles from Rosslyn.

And Sir William would certainly have come here.

Dr Richard Fawcett, the principal inspector of ancient monuments for Historic Scotland,

has agreed to show me round.

During the Reformation, Protestant mobs destroyed many of the stone carvings,

but scattered about are nearly 100 that survived.

It really must've been one of the most impressive churches ever built in Scotland.

In fact, one of the most impressive churches ever built in Britain.

What I find rather exciting about this part of the church,

is that you get a very good indication

of the change of attitudes to architectural design

that you're getting in the later Middle Ages in Scotland.

In the very earliest part, you have a very English building.

You see that best of all in that very rectilinear tracery.

-Yes.

-It looks almost as if it was designed on, um... a piece of graph paper.

But then there's a great change in the window that you can see just there.

You can probably see that that's designed in a much more flowing way.

Yes, it is, isn't it? What do you think were the influences for the change there?

Well, it is rather intriguing

because it's the sort of design that when you first look at it,

you might think that it's harking back

to old and abandoned English types of tracery design.

But that sort of design was being taken up on the Continent in the very late 14th century.

In fact here at Melrose we're particularly fortunate that we have an inscription over there

which says there was a French-born mason called John Morow at work here.

And I think it's pretty much certain that he was responsible

for the change in design of the window tracery.

How interesting. So you feel there's a bit of a French influence?

I think it's actually built by a French mason.

And the rather nice thing about John Morow is that he was no shrinking violet

when it came to making claims for what he'd done

and on the inscription there, he very carefully lists some of the other buildings he'd worked on.

So you can see, "John Morow sum tym callit

"was I and born in Parysse certainly

"and had in kepyng al mason werk of Santandrays

"ye hye kirk of Glasgw, Melros and Paslay..."

And you can see he goes on to "Nyddsdayll"...

So I think we have to be very grateful indeed to him.

Absolutely. That's a wonderful record.

If only more medieval architects were quite so arrogant,

we'd have a much fuller record of what it was they did.

-You can see there is was the original outside wall of the church that was started in 1385.

-Oh, yes.

When John Morow came along, he decided to add this row of chapels on the outside.

This sort of row chapels on one side of the nave, is something you find

in quite a lot of continental Cistercian houses.

So I think it was John Morow bringing the idea over.

What is so exciting is that he must have been one of the main channels

by which these French ideas were introduced into Scotland

and I think what we then see at Rosslyn some decades later

is a mason who is trying to reflect these French ideas,

without quite understanding them, it has to be said.

I think what we find at Rosslyn is an attempt

to produce a building with something of the cosmopolitan French veneer

by somebody who only was aware of these things at second hand.

Oh, that is very interesting.

So they went for a rather over-abundance of the French features?

Yes, you almost get the feeling in parts of Rosslyn that they didn't know when to stop.

There are a lot of similarities here with Rosslyn Chapel.

At the top of the Abbey I even find a carved green man.

Oh! Look at that! There's one of your green men.

-Yes, yes.

-It is really nice to see some of these little details here.

This is very reminiscent of some of the carvings we have at Rosslyn.

Absolutely. Except that at Rosslyn you have an awful lot of it piled on,

-carving piled on carving.

-Yes.

And these great gargoyles.

Yes.

As you can see, the famous pig over there.

-Where is he?

-Over there.

Yes, I see!

I've heard so much about him.

-He's the pig with the bagpipes?

-Yes, uh-huh.

I am fascinated by Richard's belief that a French stonemason

was responsible for many of the carvings at Melrose Abbey.

A French influence on the construction of Rosslyn Chapel

is also certainly plausible as the St Clair family originated in Normandy.

And that is where I am heading next. To the birthplace of the St Clairs.

It was from here,

just 30 miles to the north-west of Paris,

in the town of St-Clair-sur-Epte

that Sir William's Norman ancestors took their surname.

This unassuming stone tablet marks the beginnings of Normandy

because as it says, in 911, in St-Clair-sur-Epte

was concluded the treaty which established, in France, Rollo and the Normans.

During the late 9th century, this year was frequently invaded by Scandinavian Norsemen.

In the year 911, after decades of fighting,

the French king signed an agreement with Sir William's ancestor, the Viking leader Rollo,

creating the province of Normandy and making Rollo the first duke.

Rollo went on to make the city of Rouen the capital of his newly-formed province.

Over the next century, a new, ornate style of architecture

developed that was eventually given the name of Gothic.

In 1063, Rouen cathedral was completed,

a classic example of this new architecture.

Two of the most striking characteristics of Gothic church architecture

are the tall, pointed windows and arches

and the ribbed vaulting across the ceilings.

In fact in France another name for Gothic is le style ogival - ogive being a rib.

And the point of these two features is that they draw our eyes

up towards the heavens, to remind us of the power and importance of God.

And there is even more for me here than the Gothic architecture.

The cathedral is the final resting place of the great St Clair ancestor himself.

This is quite special because this is the resting place of Rollo

from whom the St Clair family is descended.

Rollo is the son of Rognvald the Mighty, chief of the Orkneys

and he was made the First Duke of Normandy in the 10th century.

So it is quite possible that Sir William St Clair, when visiting Normandy,

would have come to this place

and you can imagine how he would have been inspired by this wonderful architecture.

400 years after Rollo's death, Gothic architecture was at its height.

15th-century French masons had a reputation as being among the very best in the world.

It was just at this time that the young Frenchman, John Morow, started his stonemasonry training in Paris.

He would have trained first as an apprentice, then travelled from site to site as a journeyman.

Then, perhaps after a decade, he would acquire the skills

and experience necessary to become a master mason.

The craft of stonemasonry is still taken very seriously in France

and the tradition of stonemasonry schools continues today.

In Normandy, a master mason, Philippe Giraud,

regularly works on 15th-century manor houses made of stone.

He also runs a masonry school for up-and-coming apprentices.

To give me an idea of how the medieval masons would've worked,

Philippe has offered to carve a green man from a photograph I took of Melrose Abbey.

TRANSLATION:

It is tempting to speculate how similar Philippe might be

to Melrose Abbey's fifteenth-century French Mason, John Morow.

He has impressive masonry skills, an artistic vision and a great love of stonework.

All attributes that I assume must also have applied to John Morow.

The ability of French stonemasons to produce such incredibly-fine carvings

would certainly have caught the eye of the founder of Rosslyn Chapel, Sir William St Clair.

In 1434 he escorted the Scottish King's daughter, Margaret, to the city of Tours just south of Normandy,

to be married to the future King of France, Louis XI,

here at Tours Cathedral.

Sir William's future wife Elizabeth also had strong links with Tours.

Her father, the powerful Forth Earl of Douglas,

had been created the First Duke of Touraine for his support of France against the English.

Douglas was a great patron of stonemasonry in Scotland, with close connections to Melrose Abbey

and it is highly likely that it was he who took the French mason John Morow over to Scotland.

We will probably never know for sure but it is certainly possible

that it was here at Tours that William St Clair met Elizabeth Douglas

who was to become his wife.

And it is surely no coincidence that there are so many architectural features here

that remind me of Rosslyn Chapel.

Those wonderful flying buttresses are such a majestic example of flamboyant Gothic architecture.

It is really easy to imagine how Sir William St Clair might have been inspired

to follow in his father-in-law's footsteps

and become a patron of architectural arts in Scotland.

So maybe we're close to solving a mystery -

the identity of the stonemasons of Rosslyn.

If Sir William knew the Gothic cathedrals of northern France

and married Elizabeth Douglas, could he also have used her father's master mason Morow

or perhaps his apprentices to create his own unique chapel here at Rosslyn?

On my return from Tours, I find carvings that have a connection to France

that I have never noticed before.

I've spent so much time at Rosslyn Chapel but it is wonderful

when something happens that makes you see things with new eyes.

And my trip to France did exactly that.

I have now noticed that on the coat of arms of Elizabeth Douglas,

Sir William St Clair's first wife, there are three fleurs-de-lys.

The fleur-de-lys is the emblem of Tourenne

and appears everywhere at Tours Cathedral.

And that really suggests that there is a link between Tourenne and Rosslyn.

And another thing that I have noticed

it is that whilst I had thought that all these were angels here, there is one with no wings.

And she's a beautiful lady holding a rosary

and I just wonder whether it might be a carved portrait

of Sir William's first wife, Elizabeth Douglas.

It is a lovely thought.

After all, I do feel a certain connection to her as we both married into the St Clair family.

While I was away in Normandy, the conservation work on the chapel continued

and I'm thrilled to see that the new lead roof is nearly complete.

It is so exciting to be up here, watching the final part of the process

of putting a lead covering on top of the chapel roof

because once this is done we can then take off the canopy

which has been shielding the chapel for over a decade.

After three weeks, the 300-kilogram tracery stone Greg was carving

is now 100 kilograms lighter and is slotted into the east window.

It is too much, just 10mm.

That's the one. That's it. Yep.

It is all fitting and lining up really nicely there.

It is really nice to see this lined up perfectly.

And finally, after 13 years of covering the chapel, the canopy starts to come down.

At last, the moment I'd been waiting for, my first glimpse of the outside of the chapel without the canopy.

BELLS RING

It's Sunday and everyone in Rosslyn has come to witness

the first service for ages without the scaffolding inside the chapel.

It is an important moment for the building, the congregation and my family,

especially for my husband, the Seventh Earl of Rosslyn, a direct descendant of the chapel's founder.

It's wonderful to experience the stone carvings again as Sir William St Clair intended,

as part of the religious fabric of the building, accompanied by hymns and prayers.

It was so exciting to hear the chapel bells ringing out this morning for the service

for the first time in 13 years

and then to walk into the chapel and see the ceiling revealed in all its glory.

There was a buzz about the whole service in fact

because it really feels as if the chapel is coming back to life.

However outlandish some of the theories about Rosslyn might be,

the remarkable truth is that over 500 years ago,

the most talented craftsmen in Europe found their way to this corner of Scotland

to create some of the finest religious carvings in the world.

The original purpose of these largely unknown artists was to celebrate the glory of God.

But their enduring legacy, over the ages,

has been to create this astounding treasure in stone,

a masterpiece to fire the imagination for generations to come.

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