Secrets of a Royal castle
Kath Gourlay

One year after the death of the Queen Mother it seems that her beloved Castle of Mey is almost ready to give up some of its deepest secrets.

For the Queen Mother it was her own special place where she felt at peace. For previous occupants, the Castle of Mey appears to have been anything but tranquil. Cryptic chambers, secret societies, cabbalistic orders and hidden passages leading to the shore are pointing to lifestyles rather at odds with its image throughout the latter half of the 20th-century.

But on the anniversary of her death, it is the Queen Mother’s image of Mey - she called it her "heaven on earth" - that’s still very much to the fore.

It was a place where she could doff her royal mantle and feed the dogs from a plastic bowl stuck under a hallway table, relax with one of her battered Dick Francis novels, or listen to some of the well used 33s stacked beside the 1950’s record player she refused to replace.

Visiting Mey at the end of last season had a Marie Celeste feel to it - her catch (aged 101) in the game book, the pictures of her prized black Highland cattle stuffed under a bookcase waiting to be sorted out, the threadbare carpeting she also refused to throw out, and the small service bell with an old button sewn on a piece of string to replace the missing clapper. "Catch it while you can" said one visitor at the time "this is all going to start fading away."

That presence may well fade in time, but in the year since the Queen Mother’s will returned the Castle of Mey to the people of Caithness, some intriguing new links are being forged between her presence there and the building’s historic past.

Permission was granted recently by the Castle of Mey Trust to start excavations at the site. Ashley Cowie, a 30-year old Caithness businessman, says the first phase will unblock one of two secret tunnels leading from the castle to the beach below.

"There’s a lot to be cleared," he says, "but old folk can remember this entrance being filled in to stop local kids going inside. So at least one exit was known within living memory, and my research has shown me where the other one should be."

Perched above the Pentland Firth between the two northern headlands of Duncansby and Dunnet, the ancient castle was spotted in 1952 by the newly widowed Queen Elizabeth while staying with friends in the North of Scotland.

The windswept beauty of the isolated, derelict building must have struck a receptive chord with how she was feeling because negotiations to buy it were in place two days later. She then spent four years and her personal income making it into a private retreat.

According to Barbara Hiddlestone, archivist for the Queen Elizabeth Castle of Mey Trust, the Queen Mother was fascinated by the chequered history of the place. She conversed frequently with local people about it and amassed a large collection of books on the subject.

"She was extremely particular about getting her restoration work on the castle correct. Once she had got it liveable - and that involved re-roofing large areas and putting in electricity and a water supply - then it was an ongoing project. She rescued it just in time. Her interest was very genuine and you could see how deeply she felt about the place," says Hiddlestone.

George, the 4th Earl of Caithness - a member of the powerful St Clair family - built the main part of the present-day castle in the 16th century on top of a much older site.

‘Her staff remain incredibly loyal to her memory and few are willing to confirm exactly what Her Majesty knew about the secret chamber behind the library wall’
Her staff remain incredibly loyal to her memory and few are willing to confirm exactly what Her Majesty knew about the secret chamber behind the library wall, or the hidden route from the castle to the beach, or the blocked-off doorway and the mysterious addition of a "walk in" stone fireplace with a disproportionately large chimney. But her entreaty to a member of staff to "look out for the angels" showed she was aware of many of the castle’s secret places.

The "angels" - six cherubim carved high up on the original tower - are cabbalistic rather than Christian in design. To see them, says Hiddlestone, you had to view the tower at a certain special angle and you certainly had to know what you were looking for.

Medieval carvings were also what helped Cowie piece together the secrets of Mey and its links to the Knights Templar.

"When I was a student some years ago in Glasgow, one of my assignments was to photograph Rosslyn Chapel," says Cowie. "I recognised shapes and structures found in Caithness."

The St Clair link with the mysterious Knights Templar order is well known, and Rosslyn Chapel was built on land adjacent to the original site gifted to the Templars by King David I at Balantrodoch, now Temple. Like most royalty, David was a member of the powerful Rex Deus families who controlled the vast resources of wealth mysteriously associated with the Templars.

"I found that if you put a ruler on a map and draw a straight line from this main site directly due north you end up at the Castle of Mey," says Cowie.

"And on this line you’ll also find Holyrood Palace, Glamis [childhood home of the Queen Mother] and Balmoral Castle."

Balmoral has, at its core, a 14th-century castle built by William Drummond, married to a St Clair.

Seven years of research later Cowie says he’s only scratched the surface of the complex web of religious power that ran throughout Scotland. The St Clairs with their Knights Templar connections appeared to be right at the centre of it.

"These St Clair castles are all aligned on a religious grid system. It involves re-usage of ancient megalithic and druid sites," he says. "When Christianity came to Scotland, earlier sites were replaced with chapels and castles to herald the new faith but Templars followed the teachings of the pre-Christian Jerusalem church, and the St Clairs were at the head of it all."

The Templars adopted the five-petal dog rose to symbolise the ancient Celtic five pointed star sign connected to Venus, which denoted knowledge.

"The Templars’ ‘rose lines’ connected important places for them," says Cowie. "The village of Roslin, and its famous Rosslyn Chapel, were derived from that name. I found the stem of the rose - the rose line - ran from the ancient sites round Rosslyn through all these others to end up at Mey. At the top of the stem in Caithness, the castles align perfectly round a five-pointed megalithic stone arrangement - everything placed with perfect mathematical precision. The whole county was a Templar stronghold."

His findings will be the basis of the book he is now working on.

"The Hebrew word ‘Baal’ meaning ‘Lord’ was also very important to the Templars - hence the name Balantrodoch, just beside Rosslyn. Balerno is just a few miles away, and others, including Balmoral, lie on that rose line. Under every one of them, including Balmoral and Mey, you would find an ancient site or castle, to protect or preserve the old beliefs."

Some 15th-century scratchings on the wall of the Rosslyn Chapel crypt provided him with crucial links in his quest. Once he’d deciphered them, he found they joined up to make a map linking sites he’d found.

Persecuted by Rome as heretics, the Templars were said to have been given refuge by Robert the Bruce and sanctuary by the St Clairs. Many castles were thought to be secret meeting places where they could practise their beliefs. The ancient rituals were later absorbed into freemasonry and a hidden chamber with symbolic references can be found behind the library wall in Mey. Cowie explains that a secret entrance to the outside tunnel can be reached through the fireplace in the main kitchen.

"The shape and dimensions are a give-away when you’ve studied Templar architecture. I’m sure trapdoors in this castle were used for lowering people into, as part of their rituals. The archivist agrees an area has been filled and rebuilt and I’ve told her if it’s dug out, they’ll find an entrance to the tunnel."

Curious too, is the carving the Queen Mother commissioned for above the windows she restored beside the front entrance. It includes the Bowes-Lyon family crest but at the top is an original four-pointed Templar cross. Under that, a dog rose - identical to one carved above the door of Rosslyn Chapel.

The Queen Mother rescued and restored the St Clair portraits and swords mouldering in the ruinous Castle of Mey in 1952. They have pride of place in the hallway.

"I’ve always been curious why she chose Mey. There were plenty of similar derelict castles around Caithness," says Cowie. "Intriguing though, don’t you agree?"