When a legal advocate asked the owners of Holywood Church; the authors of ‘The Templar Bells of Scotland, an investigation into the origins of the bells in a Dumfriesshire church’, to describe Historic Environment Scotland’s (HES) response to their research and subsequent pleas for help, the owners termed the government agency ‘an indolent caretaker’—a necessary custodian who makes excuses not to do their job. The advocate, already having carefully and objectively considered the evidence of the owners’ discovery and HES’s response to it, agreed. ‘An enormous coup for Scotland is denied because of an academic and bureaucratic mess... malignant caretaker may be a more fitting description.’
As soon as the owners presented their research to HES in 2021, identifying the first Templars of Scotland and presenting priceless unique Templar artefacts, the prime question HES should have asked is, ‘the discovery... is it genuine?’
Scepticism should be expected, but considering the tremendous benefits to the owners, the church's sustainability, the local economy, and the understanding and appreciation of Scottish medieval history, then perhaps even the potential of the discovery was something not to dismiss without prudent consideration. It was important HES appraised the discovery carefully, to either disavow the owners’ conclusions; finding their discovery unsound, or assist, mentor and promote a genuine discovery because it was significant to the history of the nation.
However, rather than disavow or authenticate the discovery, HES expended three years of bureaucratic energy to avoid engagement, employing excuse and artifice not to disagree or agree with the find, but to avoid considering the discovery. Why?
Why, after receipt of the owners’ investigation, would HES manipulate the historic record of the bells, so as not to conflict with the owners’ dating, but stop short of confirming or denying the owners’ Templar attestation?
We can only speculate of course, but with evidence of prejudice underlining the academic-led professional history sector, then it is likely HES did not approve of the architects of the find. After all, the authors of the report were deemed ‘amateurs’, so the agency were perhaps hesitant to help. HES being particularly cautious, as the owners had raised the often-speculative subject of Templar history, and in the process of their examination had dismantled the 'accepted' academic and historical record, identifying the incompetence of not only one ‘scholar’ but several, caught by lazy reliance on supposition over research, fielding a lack of skill set, and deficiencies in observational and logical reasoning—bench marks of supposed scholarly work.
What is certain, rather than ‘fence’ with the owners for three years, if HES could have dismantled the owners’ investigation in a single blow, it would have, but just like the denials of the foremost referred scholars, the agency could not dismiss the discovery with evidenced argument. However, unlike the specialist scholars, HES stopped short of using falsity as counterargument, employing bureaucratic obfuscation instead. By its actions, HES implies it had accepted the owners’ conclusions, but rather than authenticate a legitimate discovery or help the owners with a very real dilemma regarding the sustainability of their mis-bought heritage, the agency abstained, probably because of the consequences the find would have on the ‘professional’ repute of the tenured historian, discomforted by those it deemed illegitimate scholars.
What is clear in the communications between the owners and HES, is a plea for help on one side, for the benefit of heritage, and rebuttal on the other, purely to safeguard the professional historian’s control. One side has merit, the other malignancy. Read the evidence and judge for yourselves which is which.