Sometime around the 13th century, two masons taking a break from working on Arbroath Abbey might have sat down to a game of Merelles. A large building stone sat between them, crudely carved into a gaming board.

Each man had a set of 9 counters – small stones, wooden beads or pieces of bone maybe. They took it in turns to place or move their set of counters, trying to create a row of three of their own.

Centuries later, in the 1920s, a post-reformation wall was taken down at Arbroath Abbey. It had been built using much older stones and among them, waiting to be discovered, was the masons’ Merelles board.