Scotland & the Templar Connection

The Knights Templar - Knights Hospitaller/ Knights of Malta - William Wallace - Robert the Bruce - the Sinclairs and all the rest

Robert the Bruce - Rosslyn Chapel

Intended site visits

Bannockburn Battle site & Memorial

Bannockburn Heritage Centre

Stirling Castle

Cairnpapple Hill, Ancient Chambered Cairn Mound

Torphichen Knights Hospitaller Perceptory

Rosslin Chaple & Castle Grounds

Knight Templar Perceptory at Balantradoch

2 Days - £245 (£20 single supplement), including transport, site visits & entrance to Rosslyn Chapel, Bannockburn Heritage Center & Stirling Castle. Also Hotel B&B accommodation.

It is sunrise on Friday 13th October 1307 and throughout France, troops are knocking down the doors of Knight Templar properties. Pope Clement V and King Phillip "the Fair" had issued sealed orders that on this morning all Templars, were to be arrested and rounded up on trumped up charges of heresy. The previous evening the huge Templar fleet was moored in their home port of La Rochelle. In the morning they had disappeared as had most of the Templars and more significantly, all of their magnificent wealth. Not one coin or ounce of gold was to be found. The answer to this wriggle is that a large number of the Templars had fled to Scotland, a place of assured refuge with the powerful De-Bruce family.

On our quest weekend we will be visiting properties associated with the Knights Templars and hearing the story of there Scottish connections. As in all such ventures we will be putting the whole thing in context by looking at what led up to the situation in Scotland. At Bannockburn, we will be answering the question of how this battle against the English was won when many were lost. Did the Knights Templar fight along side the MacDonalds?

We will be visiting the famous Templar related; Rosslyn Chapel, but also the little visited Rosslyn Castle together with a Templar Preceptory on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The Knights Hospitaliers, or the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem also had a preceptory base in Scotland and we shall visit this magnificent building, which is said to be connected with a near by Neolithic site. Cairnpapple has been described as one of the most important prehistoric sites on mainland Scotland. The site spans a remarkable period of some 4000 years of activity, from about 3500 BC through to c.500 AD, with its major features being a Neolithic henge and circle, followed by a series of three Bronze Age cairns with cist burials, and a Late Iron Age cemetery.