You’ve Got Grail

The folks at Rosslyn Chapel may wish Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code hadn’t sold quite so many copies. Rosslyn was featured in the novel as a possible resting place for the Holy Grail, and its number of visitors to Roslin has since increased from 40,000 per year to 175,000 in 2006.

This huge influx has created challenges for the small chapel. A new entrance has to be built. The parking lot and visitors center have to be expanded. Cameras, disguised as carvings of angels, were installed to protect against the greedy fingers of grail-hunters. Curators estimate that renovations will cost about £13 million.

The chapel itself seems to be taking on the hordes of visitors relatively well—for now. Rosslyn is made of soft sandstone, which will start to erode if the flow of visitors remains so high. “We might be the only attraction in existence that actually wants to get people to stop coming,” joked Rosslyn Interpretation and Events Manager Simon Beattie.

Has the chapel seen any grail sleuthing? “We had one man try to steal the cross from the front of the chapel,” Beattie says. “He didn’t have a bag or anything, he just tried to walk out the front with it, but it’s rather large. Needless to say, we caught him.” Beware, souvenir hunters: the angels are watching you.