Qualla: Roslin Castle

Roslin Castle: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0. The story goes that during the great fire of 1452, the Earl of Orkney panicked - not for himself, not for his family, but for his books. The first Sinclair earls had built a scriptorium inside Roslin Castle, and in it they had accumulated a library of medieval manuscripts that any king might have envied. As the flames climbed the tower, the Earl's chaplain reportedly lowered the most precious volumes from a high window on ropes, one by one. Five of those St Clair manuscripts survive today in the National Library of Scotland. One, the Rosslyn-Hay manuscript, is believed to be the oldest extant work of Scots prose. The castle the chaplain saved them from is now a ruin you can rent for a holiday.

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Image: Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Roslin Castle: The Sinclairs Take Possession

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alastair Montgomery, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Sinclair family - originally St Clare, of Norman French stock - acquired Roslin in 1280, on the eve of Scotland's wars of independence. They built their first fortress here in the late 14th or early 15th century, perhaps begun by Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, who died aroun...

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Image: Alastair Montgomery | CC BY-SA 2.0

Roslin Castle: Fire and Renaissance

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Mebanana at English Wikipedia., Public domain. The 1452 fire is the most cinematic incident in the castle's medieval history, but it is far from the only one. In 1303 a Scottish army under Sir Simon Fraser and John Comyn defeated a much larger English force just outside the castle walls at the Battle of Roslin - one of the le...

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Image: The original uploader was Mebanana at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

Roslin Castle: Ballads, Books and Da Vinci

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jim Smillie, CC BY-SA 2.0. The east range survived all of this, and survives still. Three lower floors are cut into the rock - kitchen, bakehouse, vaulted storerooms - with the principal rooms on the upper two floors reached through that 1622 doorway. Above the keep, a curtain wall of 15th-century stonewor...

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Image: Jim Smillie | CC BY-SA 2.0

Roslin Castle: Holiday in a Ruin

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Pennington, CC BY-SA 2.0. The current owner is Peter St Clair-Erskine, 7th Earl of Rosslyn - a direct Sinclair descendant who has spent his working life as a London police officer rather than as a baron. He leases the habitable east range through the Landmark Trust, which restored the building to high sta...

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Image: Mike Pennington | CC BY-SA 2.0