Photo: Ymblanter (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Roslin and the Collegiate Chapel of St Matthew, founded by William Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, in 1446. It starts in the village, by the inn, with the Battle of Roslin of 1303 and the farmland cairn that marks it. At the chapel it reads the carved outside, from the flying buttresses and the blocked west doorways of a nave that was never built to the fox and goose by the north door, then goes in among the Green Men, the debated maize and aloe, and the Apprentice Pillar with its eight dragons, separating what is recorded from the later legends of the murdered apprentice, the Templars, the Grail and The Da Vinci Code. The walk ends below the chapel at Rosslyn Castle, on its peninsula above the North Esk, and in Roslin Glen among the ruins of the gunpowder works that ran from about 1804 to 1954.
9 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 8 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 5 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Roslin village and the Original Rosslyn Inn, The Battle of Roslin memorial cairn.
Rosslyn Chapel Visitor Centre, Rosslyn Chapel exterior, The unbuilt nave and the burial ground, Inside the chapel: the Green Men and the carved stone, The Apprentice Pillar, the Lady Chapel and the crypt, Rosslyn Castle.
Roslin Glen and the gunpowder mills.
A cairn at Dryden Farm marking where tradition places the Scottish victory of 24 February 1303.
Buttresses and pinnacles thick with carving, a hidden beehive, and blocked doorways meant to lead into a nave that was never built.
Foliate heads among the vaults and pillars, and the carvings read as maize or aloe in a building older than Columbus's voyage.
A helix of carved vines over eight dragons, and the story of the murdered apprentice, first written down long after.
The Sinclairs' castle on a peninsula of the North Esk, sacked by Cromwell's troops in 1650; its East Range was completed in 1622.
Mossy riverside ruins of a gunpowder works that ran from about 1804 to 1954, powered by the North Esk.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 9 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 9 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Rosslyn Chapel and Roslin Glen — the Carvings, the Sinclairs and the Castle, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
9 narration points, including Inside the chapel: the Green Men and the carved stone, The Apprentice Pillar, the Lady Chapel and the crypt, Rosslyn Castle, Roslin Glen and the gunpowder mills and Roslin village and the Original Rosslyn Inn. That is about 23 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Yes, from Leith (about 11 km in a straight line) and South Queensferry (about 21 km in a straight line). Plan the transfer before you go. There is no start time and no group to keep up with, so you can stop at any point and head back to the ship. Keep your own eye on the all-aboard time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~3 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 9 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.