Freemasonry worldwide waits and hopes that Dan Brown's latest novel will project the Order in a positive light.
One of the places to have benefited greatly from the novel and subsequent film is Rosslyn Chapel.Just how successful this has proved to be is reported in the press article reproduced below.
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Da Vinci Code link nets chapel £1.3m By Murdo MacLeod
ROSSLYN Chapel has chalked up a £1.35m surplus due to the stream of visitors who came to see the building in the wake of the Da Vinci Code film. [after having received £7 million pounds of Scottish Tax payer's oney]
The 15th-century Scottish church, which featured in the controversial hit [sic] movie, saw the number of visitors climb from just 30,000 a year in 2000 to 120,000 in 2005/06 and 176,000 in 2006/07. The cash is being ploughed into speeding up a planned £12.75m renovation of the building and a revamped visitor centre.
But the managers of the attraction [a medieval church] , entrance to which costs now costs £7 per adults and £5 for children, which used to be fee, believe that Da Vinci Code fever has peaked and that annual visitor numbers are due to fall by about 20,000 a year. They believe that the number of visitors in 2007/08 will fall to 155,000 as the effect of the film wears off – although numbers are still well above the annual target of 80,000. Colin Glynne-Percy, [who has had a colourful career as a nude calander boy] the director of Rosslyn Chapel, said: "We think it's clear now that the initial interest in the aftermath of the film has peaked. If you look at the figures for the August bank holiday, they were 31,000 in 2006 and 29,000 in 2007. "We did achieve the aim of getting visitor numbers up and we want to make it an essential destination for visitors to Scotland." He explained the takings were being used to speed up a major series of works to the building. Glynne-Percy said: "The money raised may only be used for the upkeep of the building. The renovations will be completed within five years. Without the extra money, they would have taken considerably longer. Several years longer" [It is rather od that this suggests that the revovatins will be funded entirlt by admission charges and that there is no mention of the £7 ($14,000,000) million pounds contributed by the cottish tax payer. The chapel features in both the Da Vinci Code book and the film. It emerges in the film as the ultimate location of the Holy Grail. Among Rosslyn's many intricate carvings are a sequence of 213 cubes or boxes protruding from pillars and arches with a selection of patterns on them. It is unknown whether these have any particular meaning.
Many people have attempted to find information coded into them, but as yet no interpretation has proven conclusive.
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It is interesting to note that having received £7,000,000 (7 million pounds) of Scottish tax payer's money the Grand Lodge of Scotand nor Scottish Freenasonry in genereal has been approached as to how best to restore this 'Masonic' building. See: www.rosslynhoax.com for more information.