The Mystery of Mount Heredom, Masonic Seat of Scotland

Every country in the world has a handful of mountains which demand central roles in tales of lost treasures and mysteries of a supernatural nature, but only Scotland can claim to have a mountain so magical that not only was it mentioned in the Bible, but it might not even exist. However, in early Masonic mythologies associated with ‘Mount Heredom’ it is said to be the home of pure Freemasonry where the first ‘Grand Master’ held council, but nobody is quite sure where, or what Heredom was, or is.

View from the summit of Scotland’s Mount Schiehallion looking over loch Rannoch into the setting sun, one of the alleged locations of the legendary Mount Heredom. (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Flight of the Knights’ Templar

This quest to find ‘Mount Heredom’ begins in Kilwinning, a sleepy town on Scotland’s west coast that is quite literally ‘steeped’ in legends telling of secret orders of knights guarding valuable sacred relics in the 12th century abbey, the tower of which still stands today in the center of the town. Even the old Mercat Cross in the Main Street of Kilwinning is said to contain part of the cross on which Jesus was crucified and historian Jamie Morton from Ayrshire recently presented evidence that the legendary Holy Grail was hidden in a chamber beneath Kilwinning Abbey.