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    A Complete Illustrated Guide To Edinburgh's Royal Mile
    A Complete Illustrated Guide To Edinburgh's Royal Mile
    A Complete Illustrated Guide To Edinburgh's Royal Mile
    Ebook91 pages59 minutes

    A Complete Illustrated Guide To Edinburgh's Royal Mile

    By Robert B. McNeill

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    About this ebook

    A Complete Illustrated Guide To Edinburgh’s Royal Mile

    From Edinburgh Castle esplanade to Holyrood Palace, this comprehensive 14, 000-word guide tells the story of Edinburgh's Royal Mile and the intriguing cast of characters associated with it.

    Fascinating facts include:

    * Where 300 people were burned for practising witchcraft

    * The location of the most haunted Close in Edinburgh

    * Where you can see poet Robert Burns' love letter

    * The spot where Scotland's last public hanging took place

    * Where the world's first encyclopedia was published

    Other places of interest you can read about include: 1. Holyrood Park (a 650-acre highland-like landscape with three lochs and a 820-foot summit). 2. Greyfriars Bobby (his story and the location of his statue). Calton Hill (location of the National Monument and the Nelson Monument).

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNetherbow Publishing
    Release dateSep 28, 2015
    ISBN9781516332496
    A Complete Illustrated Guide To Edinburgh's Royal Mile

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      Book preview

      A Complete Illustrated Guide To Edinburgh's Royal Mile - Robert B. McNeill

      A Complete Illustrated Guide to

      Edinburgh’s Royal Mile

      Robert B. McNeill

      (text & photographs)

      Netherbow Publishing © 2010

      New illustrated edition © 2012

      ––––––––

      Introduction

      It is perhaps easiest to visualise Edinburgh’s Old Town if you imagine a herring picked clean until only the skeleton remains. Edinburgh Castle is the head, and Holyrood Palace the tail. The ‘spine’ is the Royal Mile and the ‘bones’ are the 300 or so alleyways running at right angles to the central vertebrae.

      From the Castle at the top, there are five separately named streets that make up the Royal Mile: Castlehill, Lawnmarket, High Street, Canongate and the Abbey Strand (a short section at the entrance to Holyrood Palace).

      The aim of this e-book is to tell the story of the Royal Mile and the cast of characters associated with it. There is so much to see that a good guide is essential, and I’ve endeavoured to make sure every feature of interest is included to enable you to make the most of your visit. We begin at Edinburgh Castle esplanade and finish at Holyrood, where an Abbey was first created in the early twelfth century. (I’ve added further information on Holyrood Park, Greyfriars Bobby and Calton Hill, which I’m sure you’ll find a worthwhile supplement to your itinerary.) For ease of exploration, I recommend that you divide the Royal Mile into two sections, each of which will take either a morning or afternoon to complete. Since walking downhill is easier than walking up, I suggest the following:

      Royal Mile 1 (morning or afternoon): Start at the Castle and finish at the Tron Church in the High Street. This section takes in the Castle, Castlehill, Lawnmarket, High Street (as far as Tron Church). Time to complete: 3-4 hours. (Covered by chapters one and two.)

      Royal Mile 2 (morning or afternoon):

      Start at High Street at the junction of North Bridge and proceed toward Holyrood. This section takes in High Street to Canongate, and Canongate to Holyrood Palace and Scottish Parliament.

      Time to complete: 3-4 hours. (Covered by chapters three, four and five.)

      Note: these timings allow time for you to stop for refreshment en route.

      To ensure you need to make as few crossings of the Royal Mile as possible, I have sometimes grouped places of interest — marked left (L) or right (R) as you proceed down the hill — beyond the point of others still to be covered, which means you may have to backtrack a few yards on occasion. Please be aware the Royal Mile carries a fair amount of traffic and exercise caution when crossing the road.

      It is important that visitors from right-hand drive countries remember to look right first before crossing.

      Edinburgh Castle to Lawnmarket

      In the early nineteenth century, a parade ground (esplanade) was completed for drilling troops garrisoned at the Castle. Every year since 1947 the Esplanade has been used to stage the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, an event which attracts 250,000 visitors annually.

      ––––––––

      Macintosh HD:Users:robertmcneill:Desktop:E/Castle.jpg

      Edinburgh Castle

      Castle Esplanade

      Walking toward the Castle, two plaques can be seen on the left battlements. The first of these is in memory of David Leslie, Earl of Leven, who defended the city in 1689. The second commemorates officers and men of the Gordon Highlanders who fought in the second Boer War (1899-1902).

      Cross the moat at the Castle entrance and view the statues of King Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) on the left, and Sir William Wallace (1270-1305) on the right.

      Bruce defeated the army of Edward I at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and set Scotland on the road to independence. At the declaration of Arbroath in 1320, a document was signed which declared: ‘So long as there be but one hundred of us who remain alive we shall never subject ourselves to the domination of the English. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honours, but it is Liberty alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life.’

      Macintosh HD:Users:robertmcneill:Desktop:ZZ 2.jpg

      Sir Robert the Bruce

      Macintosh HD:Users:robertmcneill:Desktop:ZZ 3.jpg
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