The Bakery Fire

Thanks to all your kind comments yesterday, I'll get around to replying tomorrow (now today).

I went down to The Chapel with Mrs TD this morning, she was going on a tour of the original old Roslin Inn (now Collegehill House and not to be confused with The Original Rosslyn Inn) and the castle; it had been arranged for the chapel tour guides and I managed to blag my way into the group. Both of these buildings are let under the Landmark Trust for holidays - though Lord and Lady Rosslyn have first pick as befits their status.

Collegehill was built in 1660 and has played host to many notaries including Burns, Boswell, the Wordsworths and royalty, many of whom scratched their signatures on the windows. It would seem that someone stole the piece of glass with Burns' autograph a few years ago, but it hasn't turned up on EBay yet.

The castle was fascinating, it's sited on a lump of rock with the walls and disused accommodation extending down to the level of the base of the rock on one side. It was built during the century following the Battle of Roslin (1303), was destroyed during the "Rough Wooing" (1544) but has been continuously occupied since the following rebuild. Having been round the rooms on the top two floors which are in current use and with not a level floor between them (don't visit if you've had one too many) we went "below stairs." The blip is of the fire-place in the bakery; with no lighting and little in the way of windows, it was a struggle to get any sort of picture so there are no apologies for quality here. I assume that there would have been a fire basket with the space on either side of it used for cooking or it may have housed ovens; there is a smaller fireplace at the opposite end of the room. Immediately beneath is an identical room that was the kitchen, and below that, the bottom level, was probably for storage. It was a shame that we had no one with us who really knew anything about what we were seeing, but we were very privileged to be allowed to visit.
From outside in spring, you can see jackdaws coming and going through the glassless windows, obviously nesting inside the lower floors, but we only found one nest: a three foot high pile of sticks accumulated over the years, sitting on a deep window ledge, with a large pile of nesting material on the floor beneath. A similar nest in Penicuik was blipped just over a year ago here and here.


I've just posted last Tuesday's, "For Sale."