FOR decades during the Jacobite rebellion a "secret" seminary in Glenlivet on Speyside served as a refuge for the training of young students for the Catholic priesthood.
Despite attacks by Hanoverian troops following the battle of Culloden, Scalan College survived as a major seat of Catholic teaching in Scotland until the end of the 18th century.
The seminary site has become a place of pilgrimage because of its s
ignificance to the Catholic Church in Scotland, and yesterday Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of Scotland's Catholics, visited the site to celebrate a special mass to mark the lease of the land from the Crown Estate.
The Scalan Association, originally formed in 1948 by three priests to preserve the remains of the seminary site, has agreed with the Crown Estate to buy a cottage at Scalan, which once formed part of the seminary and to take a long-term lease on the surrounding land.
Cardinal O'Brien said: "At the time that Scalan was used as a seminary there were no other places in Scotland for the training of Roman Catholic priests because of the persecutions.
"The 'heather' priests were trained here for missions throughout Scotland. And consequently the Catholic faith was preserved and handed on in Scotland because of the efforts from this little place."
Canon Brian Halloran, chairman of the Scalan Association, said: "These developments should help us to raise awareness of Scalan as a centre of great religious significance in Scotland.
"The lease of the surrounding area has enabled us to fence the area to prevent possible damage from livestock and should help us to promote pilgrimage to the old seminary of Scalan."
