Pub has a starring role in new movie

The daring story of how four students broke into Westminster Abbey to capture a valuable Scottish symbol before heading to their local pub has been made into a film.

The 'Stone of Destiny' - the coronation stone originally stolen by England's King Edward I during his invasion of Scotland in 1296 - was eventually returned to England but the pub at the heart of the story may have had the original all along.

It was 60 years ago when the students arrived at the Arlington Bar in Glasgow to celebrate the heist they'd pulled off more than 400 miles away.

The film, starring Robert Carlyle and Charlie Cox, reveals how budding lawyer Ian Hamilton and his Glasgow University colleagues recovered the stone - considered to be a symbol of Scotland's lost nationhood - on Christmas Day 1950.

After a police hunt the group finally surrendered the stone to the authorities a few weeks later. They were charged with theft, but never prosecuted.

Now Scotland has devolution and the stone has been installed in Edinburgh Castle - but bar regulars say the original never left the pub.

Licensee Mark Yates explained: "We've got our own 'real' Stone of Destiny. I'm sceptical myself, but I'm not from Glasgow, and there's a long-running story that the students swapped the real stone - ours - for a replica."

However, the Arlington's stone has been on display in the bar since it was discovered in a box during a refurbishment.

Bar owner Patrick Leddie said: "Is it the real one? I don't know - it's certainly possible. Some of the regulars swear it is, and others would like to believe it but don't."

In a further twist many Scots claim King Edward was palmed off with a dodgy stone by the Abbot of Scone back in 1296 - and that the real one has never been found.

The Stone of Destiny will be in cinemas next month.