Gilmerton Cove and The Knights Templar
Gilmerton Cove, Edinburgh
Could there be a link between Gilmerton Cove and The Knights Templar?
An underground dwelling-place carved out of sandstone, Gilmerton Cove has remained unchanged for centuries, yet to this day no-one knows who built it and what it was for.
Access is through an old plumber’s workshop, where visitor panels dripping with damp and fungus set out what little is known about the cove. This leads to an even darker, mouldier room where the entrance to the cove begins. Here, rough stone steps lead you ten metres underground to the snaking of tunnels and chambers below. The size is surprising, the intricacy of the carving astonishing. And the sense of the mysterious is overpowering.
What is known about the cove is that local blacksmith George Patterson claimed to have hewn the rooms and passages from the rock between 1719 and 1724. Thereafter, his family lived there until his death in 1737. We also know from church records that the Pattersons used one room as a public house to sell alcohol – not unusual at the time.
Although unconventional, this underground home may have provided reasonable accommodation when compared with the state of housing above ground. Down here, the family would have had space – even if less than comfortable.
The dispute and the intrigue arise from a suggestion that far from constructing the whole building, Patterson merely inherited an existing structure.
In 1897 FR Coles, Assistant Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, investigated the cove. His conclusion was that it would have been impossible for one man to have built it in five years. Furthermore he suggested that the stonework showed clear signs of pick-marks, as used by miners, and not the chiselling he would have expected had the blacksmith indeed fashioned himself an underground home.
Mining and Gilmerton have had a long connection. Coal and lime have been found here since the 13th century and the last mine only shut in the 1960s. It is no great leap to suppose that Gilmerton cove was a trial bore – a seam that miners dug out, which came to nothing. It is reasonable to think that Patterson found the caves already excavated and set about building the “furniture” that can be seen today.If you accept that the structure pre-existed Patterson, then the function of the different rooms is open to debate. It may well be that Patterson used the drinking parlour as a pub and the punchbowl held alcohol. But this might not have been the original function.
Look closely and you see mason’s marks on the “bar” which might lead to the conclusion that this was a masonic meeting place. Search further and you can glimpse the faint tracing of a carved animal, a cat sitting perched beside the punchbowl. There are some who think the cove was in fact a home to witches, or a coven.
Add more letters and you get Covenanter – and there is a theory that the chapel was the meeting place of people persecuted for their religion, who gathered far from prying eyes to conduct their services in secret.
The punchbowl may have been a baptismal font – the hidden room serving as a chapel for Roman Catholics to baptise their newborn.
Further exploration of the cavern only deepens the mystery. Two small bolt holes - tunnels that shoot off out of the building - have been found. There is speculation that one leads towards nearby Craigmillar Castle. The other is said to head straight to Rosslyn Chapel only a few miles away.
With the revelation of secret passageways – or escape routes – theories topple over each other like dominoes. Into the already heady mix of masons, witches and Covenanters comes more fanciful notions. Echoing around the caves is a distant whisper of a deep and hidden mystery. It is said that the Knights Templar – those fighting Crusader monks – used this place for assignations, entering secretly through the tunnels that run back to Rosslyn.
And as everyone knows by now, the Templars didn’t just bring fighting talent when they came out of the East, but something else. Which leads to one final question about Gilmerton.
Could this neglected, half-forgotten cave be the true resting place of the Holy Grail?
Read more: http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/five-unsolved-scottish-mysteries-1-4116697#ixzz47cYlvdyM
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Knight Templars
Could there be a link between Gilmerton Cove and the Knight Templars? Read about them and make up your own mind.
The Order of Knight Templars in Scotland was founded by Hugh De Payens, the First Grand Master of the Order, in 1128 whilst he was visiting his family relatives by marriage in Scotland. Despite the many misleading claims by others, it was not the St. Clairs, nor any family residing in Roslin either. Possibly his Norman relatives via the Norman Prior of Melrose Abbey, or the Earl David, later David King of Scots from his first marriage in Northumbria which was part of Scotland at that time. The Primary role and function of the Order in Scotland, was to provide good fighting men to help protect the Pilgrim routes to and from the Holy Lands. Especially Santiago De Compostello, a Holy place with many Scottish connections, and ancient Celtic ties with this Noble Order. The name of Douglas and others still being well known to this day in Spain.
Many of our modern institutions owe their origin to the Order of Knight Templars, especially the Banking and Financial Institutes. The Order was a major force in shaping the Western World, until unjust persecution in 1307 drove the Order from France, and other Countries to seek Sanctuary, and refuge in Scotland, where the Order has survived in various forms even to this day, also to serve their own Sovereign Grand Master, Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, the Knight Templars also fighting with great distinction in 1314 at Bannockburn, their charge breaking up and scattering the English Chivalry's right wing. To thus assist Scotland to win the day against the most elite and veteran filled Army of all Christendom.
Throughout history the fortunes of the Order in Scotland have fluctuated so much that their activities were often clandestine for fear of reprisal by their Unionist adversaries. However there is clear documentary evidence of famous Knight Templars in Scottish History particularly within the Christian Jacobite movement: these include James of Claverhouse (Bonnie Dundee), the Grand Prior of Scotland who was murdered by a Unionist assassin at the Battle of Killiecrankie - he was succeeded in his post by John, The Earl of Mar as Regent. Also Charles Edward Stuart, who held a meeting on the evening of the 24/9/1745 with the Knight Templars in Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh. These same Templars Installed him as the Sovereign Grand Master of Scotland that very night (Prestonpans Victory having just been won on the 22/9/1745.) Another famous Templar was the Duke of Montrose a Protestant who kept his Templar Oath of Religious Freedom for all, this at the cost of his own life, in opposing John Knox and other Unionist Quislings. In recent times the Order like many others, has come through a successful schism and revival, there is currently a wide spread of membership of Christian and Templars throughout the World.
