Kilwinning

RETURN TO THE GOOD SOUP GUIDE
A - Z

What lies buried beneath the ground at Kilwinning? And why, you might ask, am I asking? Well, to all intents and purposes Kilwinning seems just like any other wee Scottish town, a town whose citizens are showing slight signs of wear and tear as a result of unemployment and the loss of so many industries. The streets themselves are showing slight signs of decay, as evident in the boarded-up shops and abandoned pubs. And yet, the town of Kilwinning is more special than you could ever imagine, perhaps the most special place in the whole world. Long long ago, a group of men came here from somewhere far far away. They built an abbey. Took them a hundred years or so. They must have been pretty sure that that's what they wanted to do before they started; build an abbey, that is. The men who built it were masons. They went on to hold meetings in the abbey, and as the years rolled by Kilwinning eventually became the centre of Freemasonry in Scotland, its ancient lodge, Mother Lodge Kilwinning, said to have links with Scottish royalty, including Robert the Bruce. There is even talk of links with the Knights Templar.
If I tell you that Rosslyn Chapel was built after the Knights Templar disbanded, then you may start to see where I'm going with this. Could the very goblet used by Jesus at the Last Supper have found its way to Kilwinning, taken by the Knights Templar? Does Kilwinning hold the Holy Grail? What does lie beneath the ground in Kilwinning's ancient abbey ruins? Now I'm really asking.