Unterwegs

Sights

Edinburgh Castle

Construction: from the 12th century onwards.

History: Edinburgh Castle is situated on the volcanic outcrop known as Castle Rock, which occupies a strategic position. The first buildings that made up the fortress were constructed in the 12th century, and its name is often wrongly associated with Edwin of Northumbria, who lived after the first recorded mentions of ‘Eidin’s burgh’. St Margaret’s Chapel dates from the castle’s earliest days. From the 12th century onwards, part of the castle was used as a prison, and in 1510, King James IV had the Great Hall built. Edinburgh Castle also played a role in major conflicts between Scotland and England, such as the Scottish War of Independence in 1300 and the Jacobite rebellion of 1746. The castle is said to have been besieged no fewer than 26 times, making it one of the most besieged castles in the United Kingdom.

Features: The Great Hall was commissioned by King James IV and completed in 1511. It is distinguished by its timber ceiling, which rests on stones carved with Scottish heads and symbols, such as the thistle. When Cromwell’s army captured the castle in 1560, the Great Hall was converted into barracks for his soldiers and, later, into a military hospital. Today, the Great Hall has been restored to its original condition and weapons and armour are on display there for the public.

The Royal Palace is the building where the Scottish kings and queens of the Stuart dynasty resided for centuries. Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to her son James VI there. King Charles I (1600–1649) was the last king to live in the palace. The Royal Palace is situated on Crown Square. It suffered considerable damage during the Siege of Lang in 1617 but was rebuilt both inside and out to its present state. In the Crown Room, visitors can admire the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish Crown Jewels and the famous Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone.

St Margaret’s Chapel, intended for the royal family, is the oldest building in Edinburgh Castle. King David I had the chapel built for his mother Margaret, who died in the castle in 1093. Today, St Margaret’s Chapel is open to visitors, but weddings are still held there. The gracefully decorated arches remain in their original condition.

A notable feature: another of the castle’s highlights is the Mons Meg cannon, which was highly advanced for its time and is named after the Belgian town where it was manufactured. In 1457, the cannon was presented to King James II. The weapon weighed no less than six tonnes and was capable of firing a 150-kilo cannonball over a distance of 3.2 km. In 1681, the cannon broke and was taken out of service.

Classification: Category A.

Edinburgh Festival

The Edinburgh Festival is an umbrella term for several arts and cultural festivals taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland, every summer, mainly in August. Although the various festivals are run by separate organisations – and are considered officially distinct events – they are regarded by many visitors as a single festival. Together, they form the world’s largest annual cultural festival.

The original, and most important, festivals are the Edinburgh International Festival, founded in 1947 (theatre, live performance, music), and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a sort of ‘off’ counterpart to the former, founded in the same year.

The Edinburgh festivals attract around four million visitors a year, with the Fringe alone selling some 2.8 million tickets – roughly double the number sold by the Avignon Festival in France.

National Museum of Scotland

Established: 1896 (Royal Museum), 1998 (Museum of Scotland), 2006 (merger of the two museums).

Characteristics: regarded as the most popular museum in the United Kingdom outside London, the National Museum of Scotland is situated on Chamber Street in Edinburgh. Visitors can admire thousands of artefacts spread across several galleries, including the Grand Gallery, the Art, Design and Fashion Galleries, the Natural World Galleries, the Science and Technology Galleries, the Scottish History and Archaeology Galleries and the World Culture Galleries. Admission to the museum is free.

The Grand Gallery, whose tall pillars and vast windows create a colossal, light-filled space, displays objects that reflect the museum’s great diversity. The highlight of the Grand Gallery is the Millennium Clock, which strikes every hour to the sound of wonderful music and a display of cheerful lights.

The Art, Design and Fashion galleries showcase designer clothing through the ages and interior design. The Natural History galleries explore animal species from around the world, with a focus on behaviour and interaction with nature. Technological developments in Scotland and around the world are the central theme of the Science and Technology galleries. The History and Archaeology galleries offer an insight into Scotland’s history, its diverse cultures and its pop culture. Finally, the World Cultures galleries showcase Scotland’s openness to other ways of life and their creative output.

National Gallery of Scotland

Opened: 1859.

Features: situated on the Mound, the artificial hill that divides the Princess Street Gardens into two parts, is the Scottish National Gallery, a museum of neoclassical artworks of European and Scottish origin. This national gallery also houses works by great foreign artists, such as Johannes Vermeer and Jan Steen. Architect William Henry Playfair designed the building, which has been officially open to the public since 1859. The Scottish National Gallery comprises two buildings: the National Gallery Building and the Royal Scottish Academy Building. The two sections are connected by an underground tunnel.

Holyrood Palace

Construction: 12th century.

History: At the foot of the Royal Mile, a monastery was founded by King David I in the 12th century and quickly became the principal residence of the Scottish monarchs. The ruins of the former monastery still stand next to Holyrood House and can be visited on a guided tour. The abbey was used for coronations and royal wedding ceremonies until the roof collapsed in the 17th century. By the end of the 15th century, the site had truly become a royal residence when James IV had a new palace built around the square to the west of the abbey. The palace comprised a chapel, the Great Hall, the royal apartments and the galleries. Later, gatehouses and towers were added. From 1999 onwards, the palace’s significance grew further with the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. To this day, the King or Queen of England appoints the First Minister of Scotland at the royal palace.

Today, Holyrood Palace is the residence of the British royal family when they are in Scotland on state visits. Queen Elizabeth II used to stay at Holyroodhouse every summer.

Features: the Great Gallery is the largest room in Holyrood Palace. Various portraits of real and fictional Scottish monarchs are displayed there. The portraits illustrate the long line of the Stuart royal family. Originally, there were 111 portraits, but many were damaged in 1746 during the Jacobite uprising. Today, the British Crown holds official dinners there. The chambers of successive kings and queens are open to visitors, and a vast collection of French and Flemish tapestries can be admired there. In the King’s Chamber, only the most important figures were received in audience. Art lovers will enjoy the King’s Gallery, which hosts temporary exhibitions of artworks from the royal collection. The Throne Room is still used for receptions and matters of state. The most famous features of the Throne Room are the two thrones, commissioned by King George V in 1911.

Listing: Category A.

Royal Yacht Britannia

Launched: 1954

History: the last in a line of 83 royal yachts dating back to 1680 under Charles II, the Britannia was built by John Brown and Co shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland. It was decorated by Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip. Christened by the Queen on 16 March 1953, it entered service in January 1954. It is 127-metres long and has a tonnage of 5,860 tonnes. It can accommodate 200 passengers, around 20 officers and 270 seamen. Commissioned by the Royal Navy, it undertook 968 official voyages across the world’s oceans over 44 years of service, accompanied by the Queen or a member of the Royal Family. A true floating British embassy, it made its final voyage to Hong Kong following the handover of the colony to the People’s Republic of China. In 1994, the British government decided to decommission it after 44 years of service for budgetary reasons: it cost 60 million pounds sterling a year. This was officially carried out on 11 December 1997 in the naval dockyard at Portsmouth, in the presence of the Queen.

Current location: the Britannia has been converted into a museum in the port of Leith in Edinburgh and has become one of the most visited attractions in Britain.

St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh

Construction: 12th and 15th centuries.

History: the original church, built in 1124 on the orders of David I, was destroyed by fire in 1385 and rebuilt during the 15th century. Chapels were added increasing the size of the building. In 1466, St Giles became a collegiate church. The lantern tower was added around 1490. In 1559, at the height of the Scottish Reformation, the Edinburgh Council appointed John Knox as minister of St Giles. He was buried there in 1572. He is commemorated by a 19th-century stained-glass window set into the south wall of the church and, since 1906, by a bronze statue on the north side. It was in this building that, on 23 July 1637, a riot took place against the Anglican form of worship that Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland sought to impose, an event which triggered the Bishops’ Wars and, subsequently, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Features: among the cathedral’s key features are the ‘green men’, sculptures that were very popular in medieval times, consisting of human heads or feline creatures with foliage growing from their mouths and ears. At the far end of the cathedral stands St Giles’ King’s Pillar, which bears four medieval stone shields. These bear the coats of arms of King James II, his wife Mary and the Crown Prince James III. The fourth shield depicts the French fleur-de-lis. The cathedral is renowned for its extensive collection of stained-glass windows. The oldest stained-glass window in Edinburgh Cathedral dates from 1873.

Notable feature: John Knox was the High Priest during the Scottish Reformation. He remained minister at St Giles until his death in 1672. In 1902, it was decided to erect a statue of him on the north-west wall of the nave. Scottish sculptor Pittendrigh MacGillivray was commissioned to carry out the work. The 1.80-metre-high bronze statue was unveiled in 1906.

Listing: listed as Category A.

Scott Monument

Construction: 1840.

Features: the monument is situated in the Princes Street Gardens, opposite Jenners, the Princes Street department store. The tower is 61.1-metres high and a spiral staircase of 287 steps leads up to the small viewing platform near the top. The tower is built of sandstone from the town of Livingston. Oil that continues to seep from the stones, combined with pollution, has contributed to the monument’s blackish colour. A white marble statue of Walter Scott stands between the tower’s four columns. Sculpted by John Steell, it depicts Walter Scott seated after writing a text with a quill pen.

History: following Walter Scott’s death in 1832, a competition was launched to design plans for a monument in his honour. One entrant submitted his entry under the pseudonym John Morvo, the name of the medieval architect of Melrose Abbey. Morvo was in fact George Meikle Kemp, a cabinetmaker, draughtsman and self-taught architect. Kemp did not wish to enter under his real name as he feared that his lack of formal training in architecture and his limited reputation would put him at a disadvantage. Yet it was he who won the competition in 1838. The foundation stone was laid on 15 August 1840 and the tower was completed in the autumn of 1844, in the absence of George Meikle Kemp, who had drowned after falling into the Union Canal on 6 March of that same year.

Listing: Category A.

Sights

Hadrian’s Wall

Built: 2nd century.

History: Hadrian’s Wall is a stone and earthwork fortification built between 122 and 127 AD. Emperor Hadrian commissioned this defensive wall to stretch across the entire width of what is now northern England, roughly corresponding to the current England–Scotland border. This wall, 80-Roman-miles (approximately 117.5 km) long, crosses the north of the island from west to east, from the Irish Sea to the mouth of the River Tyne on the North Sea. Its purpose was to protect the Roman province of Britannia from attacks by the ‘barbarians’, a term used by the Romans to refer to the Picts. The wall is flanked by 300 towers, reinforced by 80 main defensive forts and protected by seventeen fortified camps. The forts are situated at intervals of one Roman mile. The wall marked the northern boundary of the Roman Empire until the construction of Antonine Wall in 142 AD, further north. However, around 160 AD, the Antonine Wall was abandoned by Roman troops under pressure from Pictish invasions, and Hadrian’s Wall once again became the Empire’s northern frontier.

Listing: designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Listed as Grade I.

Carlisle Castle

Construction: 11th century.

Style: medieval fortress.

History: the castle was built during the reign of William II of England, son of William the Conqueror, who drove the Scots out of Cumberland. In 1093, he had a Norman-style motte-and-bailey castle built on the site of an ancient Roman fort to guard England’s northern border. In 1122, Henry I of England had the stone castle built, along with the keep and the city walls. Carlisle and its castle changed hands numerous times over the following 700 years. Henry VIII had the castle adapted for artillery by engineer Stefan von Haschenperg. Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in the castle for several months in 1568. The most significant battles around Carlisle took place during the Second Jacobite Rebellion against George II of Great Britain. In 1745, the armies of Prince Charles Edward Stuart marched down from Scotland as far as Derby. Carlisle and its castle were seized by the Jacobites. Prince William Augustus, the son of George II, recaptured the town and had the Jacobites executed. This was the last battle fought in Carlisle, as the English and Scottish nations merged to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Parts of the castle were demolished to provide building materials in the 19th century. The army retained control of the castle until 1959, when it came under the control of the Department of the Environment, and later English Heritage.

Listing: Grade I.

Carlisle Citadel

Construction: 16th century.

History: the citadel was commissioned by King Henry VIII to replace the medieval Botcher Gate, a former passage through the city walls. This new structure, designed by Stefan von Haschenperg, was completed in 1541. It ceased to be a fortress and became a prison in 1611. The east tower was altered according to plans by Thomas Telford and Sir Robert Smirke and then converted into a civil court in 1812. The west tower was completely rebuilt according to plans by Thomas Telford and Sir Robert Smirke and then converted into a Crown Court in 1822. The Citadel continued to serve as a courthouse and also became the seat of the Cumberland County Council in 1888. The Citadel ceased to be used as a courthouse following the completion of the new courthouses in 1992. There are plans to convert the site into a campus for the University of Cumbria.

Listing: Grade I listed.

Carlisle Cathedral

Construction: 12th century.

Style: Norman, Gothic.

History and features: It was founded as an Augustinian monastery before becoming a cathedral in 1133. It is the second smallest of England’s ancient cathedrals (after Oxford Cathedral). Its notable features include fine masonry with figurative carvings, a set of medieval choir stalls and the largest window in the English Gothic style.

The cathedral was founded in 1122, during the reign of Henry I, as an Augustinian monastery. In 1133, the church was elevated to the status of a cathedral under the episcopate of Aethelwold. It underwent several alterations between the 13th and 16th centuries. In 1646, during the English Civil War, part of the church was destroyed by Scottish Presbyterians to rebuild the castle. Between 1853 and 1870, the cathedral was restored by architect Ewan Christian.

Listing: Grade I listed.

Former Town Hall

Construction: 17th century.

History: the building was constructed to replace an old meeting hall dating from 1345. The new building, which houses commercial premises on the ground floor and meeting rooms on the first floor, was completed in 1669. It was extended eastwards with an additional wing featuring a clock tower in 1717, and then westwards with a three-storey wing in the 19th century. The market cross in front of the town hall, designed by Thomas Machell and carved in stone by Thomas Addison, featuring a sundial and a lion holding a scroll bearing the town’s coat of arms, was erected in 1682. The meeting rooms served as the Assize Courts until 1881, and police court hearings were held there until 1941. The building remained the seat of the County Borough of Carlisle until the city council moved in March 1964. A major restoration of the building took place in 2013 and 2017.

Distinguishing feature: in 1853, the United Kingdom’s first mail-box was installed nearby, and a replica of the ‘Penfold’ mail-box – modelled on the original designs by William Penfold, featuring acanthus leaves, balls and the royal coat of arms – was subsequently erected in front of the town hall to commemorate this event

Listing: Grade I listed.

Carlisle Guildhall

Construction: late 14th–early 15th century.

History: The Guildhall was built by Richard de Redness, probably between 1396 and 1407; it is thought to have been erected following the fire of 1391, which destroyed many buildings in Carlisle. It is an L-shaped timber-framed building. The timber framework is exposed. The roof beams all date from the building’s original construction, although the roof of the section facing Fisher Street, supported by four crown pillars, is constructed differently from that of the section facing Greenmarket. The ground floor, which may originally have been an open-plan structure, has been used for commercial purposes throughout its history.

Current use: the museum, housed on the upper floors, opened in 1978. The exhibitions trace the history of Carlisle’s guilds.

Listing: Listed Grade I since 1949.

Carlisle railway station

Built: 1848

History: in September 1847, the first trains departed from the station, although its construction was not completed until the following year. It was built in the Neo-Tudor style to designs by English architect William Tite. Carlisle Station was one of several stations in the town, but it became the main station in 1851. Passenger services from the other stations were transferred there, and those stations were closed. Between 1875 and 1876, the station was extended to accommodate the Midland Railway lines. The cutbacks of the 1960s affected Carlisle, with the closure of several lines, leading to an increase in the distance travelled via the Glasgow South Western Line to reach Stranraer Harbour and the ferries to Northern Ireland. The layout of the station has undergone few changes. Renovation work on the platforms and the glass roof was carried out between 2015 and 2018.

Characteristics: Carlisle, or Carlisle Citadel, is a major stop on the West Coast Main Line, situated 102 miles (164 km) south-east of Glasgow Central and 299 miles (481 km) north-north-west of London Euston. It is the northern terminus of the Settle–Carlisle line. The station takes its name from its proximity to Carlisle Citadel, a former medieval fortress. The station is owned by Network Rail.

Listing: Grade II listed.