Grave Robbing

A wander around Dunmore Estate near Stirling this afternoon and still no shot of a Pineapple (it'll come at some point) as this spooky looking site drew our attention away from it.

This is Elphinstone Tower (or Dunmore Tower depending on who you speak to), built around 1510 and the home of various well-to-do families up until the middle of the 19th century. The family that occupied the Tower then had the lower floor converted to this mausoleum, and it has slowly deteriorated since then with half of the building turned to rubble and with even the graves of the family desecrated. This happened around 1986 and there are numerous stories of locals finding skulls turning up in Co-op bags at the breakfast tables of the nearby mining villages. Apparently there were rumours of Egyptian treasure hidden within the mausoleum and this was too much of a temptation for some of the no doubt boozed up morons to resist.

One website I checked said that all the coffins had been re-interred elsewhere and only the lids remained but as can be seen here there are at least two near complete open coffins, one still encased in lead. And as for the contents of the caskets? Did I venture into the crypt for a peek? Well, that would be telling...