Colin Steele and Dave Milliagan at Rosslyn Chapel

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to take some pictures at a jazz concert – Colin Steele and Dave Milligan in duet at Rosslyn Chapel.

This was special for several reasons – I love the setting, I love the musicians and frankly I had been looking forward to the gig for months. I was asked to take pictures at the last minute: photography wasn't normally allowed in the chapel, but the people who look after Rosslyn wanted to have a record of the concert and it was too late for the organisers to contact their usual (professional!) photographer – I had asked if it were possible to take pictures so they knew I was keen and going to the gig. Win/win, as they say.

( More words and pictures behind the cut... )

Colin Steele and Dave Milligan at Rosslyn Chapel

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to take some pictures at a jazz concert – Colin Steele and Dave Milligan in duet at Rosslyn Chapel.

This was special for several reasons – I love the setting, I love the musicians and frankly I had been looking forward to the gig for months. I was asked to take pictures at the last minute: photography wasn't normally allowed in the chapel, but the people who look after Rosslyn wanted to have a record of the concert and it was too late for the organisers to contact their usual (professional!) photographer – I had asked if it were possible to take pictures so they knew I was keen and going to the gig. Win/win, as they say.

( More words and pictures behind the cut... )

Rosslyn Chapel

Whilst I was wandering around Rosslyn Chapel taking photographs of Colin Steele and Dave Milligan, I mentioned to the custodian of the chapel that I often tp take pictures in the chapel – last time, I followed the rules and kept outside. He said that I should feel free to take any pictures I wanted; I took him at his word.

(Someone later told me that the reason photography is banned from the chapel is not, as I suggested, because they want to sell more Cds, books and postcards, but rather because they are being sued by a tourist who was startled by someone taking flash pictures and tripped.)

Rosslyn Chapel is full of amazing and somewhat mysterious carvings; rumour has it that it was built by the Knights Templar and is full of masonic secrets (hence it features in “The Da Vinci Code”); it is certainly full of masonic imagery. Some of the carvings allegedly refer to journey's made by monks to America before Columbus got there; others tell the tale one of the chapel's patrons,Sir Henry St Clair, 7th Baron of Rosslyn, as he took Robert the Bruce's heart on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem 9after Robert's death; obviously...).

Some of the most famous stories involve the intricately carved Apprentice Pillar - carved in the Master Mason's absence by an apprentice, the mason was so incenced that he killed the apprentice; other carvings show the mason falling from the tower in punishment.

Here are some of the photographs I took in this remarkable, fascinating, medieval building.

( More pictures behind the cut... )

Rosslyn Chapel

Whilst I was wandering around Rosslyn Chapel taking photographs of Colin Steele and Dave Milligan, I mentioned to the custodian of the chapel that I often tp take pictures in the chapel – last time, I followed the rules and kept outside. He said that I should feel free to take any pictures I wanted; I took him at his word.

(Someone later told me that the reason photography is banned from the chapel is not, as I suggested, because they want to sell more Cds, books and postcards, but rather because they are being sued by a tourist who was startled by someone taking flash pictures and tripped.)

Rosslyn Chapel is full of amazing and somewhat mysterious carvings; rumour has it that it was built by the Knights Templar and is full of masonic secrets (hence it features in “The Da Vinci Code”); it is certainly full of masonic imagery. Some of the carvings allegedly refer to journey's made by monks to America before Columbus got there; others tell the tale one of the chapel's patrons,Sir Henry St Clair, 7th Baron of Rosslyn, as he took Robert the Bruce's heart on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem 9after Robert's death; obviously...).

Some of the most famous stories involve the intricately carved Apprentice Pillar - carved in the Master Mason's absence by an apprentice, the mason was so incenced that he killed the apprentice; other carvings show the mason falling from the tower in punishment.

Here are some of the photographs I took in this remarkable, fascinating, medieval building.

( More pictures behind the cut... )