Sumptuous Rosslyn Chapel: Pious Experience in Late Medieval Scotland

Dr Lizzie Swarbrick is taking the stage at Augustine United Church on Monday 30 November for a talk on Rosslyn Chapel, the Midlothian chapel that's spent as much time in the headlines for its legends as for its architecture. It's part of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland's 2026-27 public events programme.

Rosslyn has long been obscured by pseudohistories, and Swarbrick's talk is designed to unpick those legends and set the chapel back within the proper context of Scottish late medieval art and architecture. She'll be exploring how Rosslyn and other pre-Reformation Scottish churches manipulated people's senses to induce profound spiritual experiences—the kind of sensory, immersive side of medieval worship that often gets lost when we talk about these buildings as static monuments. She also touches on the Research in Action on Church Heritage (ReACH) project and the possible futures for Scotland's at-risk medieval churches.

Swarbrick is an art and architectural historian specialising in medieval Scotland. She's currently the Research Manager for the Society's ReACH project and was previously a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, where she worked on a scholarly reappraisal of Rosslyn Chapel. So she's coming to this with a good bit of specific, first-hand research behind her.

The talk is free and open to all, and it's being livestreamed via Zoom, with a recording later uploaded to the Society's YouTube channel and Spotify if you can't make it in person. It runs for an hour, starting at 16:00, with doors opening at 15:45 at Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EL.