Clan Sinclair - Rosslyn Castle - Photo Print

Photographer Aly Wight captured Rosslyn Castle from directly above in autumn, the ruins and roofed sections floating through a gorge so thickly wooded it seems the trees have grown up around them. Beyond the treeline, the fields of Midlothian stretch toward the hills.

Rosslyn has been Sinclair territory since at least 1280, when Sir William St Clair was granted the barony of Roslin. His descendants fought at Bannockburn in 1314, and when the Declaration of Arbroath was drawn up six years later, Sir Henry Sinclair put his name to it. The Declaration was Scotland's formal statement, sent to the Pope, that no king had the right to surrender the country without its people's consent. The castle burned accidentally in 1452, was sacked by an English army in 1544, and was restored each time. It remains in Sinclair hands.

If your name is Sinclair, this is the seat that outlasted fire, invasion, and seven centuries of Scottish history. It was never surrendered.