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The Real Mary King's Close (Edinburgh)
by SusanLesley
Whilst Dave has been working up here in Edinburgh again I have been staying with him for a couple of weeks. He asked some friends at work to tell him some of the good places to visit and one of the recommended ones was The Real Mary King's Close.
Where is it?
The address of the Real Mary King's Close is 2, ... Warriston's Close, High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1PG. Despite the address the attraction is situated opposite St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile in the centre of Edinburgh.
The web site address is: http://www.realmarykingsclose.com/ where you can find all the information that you need for your visit and you can also book online here too if you want to.
When is it open and how much does it cost?
It is open from 10am until 9pm during the summer apart from August when it opens at 9am. During the winter it opens at 10am every day and closes at 5pm from Sunday and Thursday and closes at 9pm on Friday and Saturday.
It costs £11 for adults, £10 for senior citizens and students and £6 for children between 5 and 15 years of age. Children under 5 are not allowed in this attraction.
There are special rates for groups of fifteen or more visitors and the whole attraction can be hired for the evening for a private event during the winter.
What is it?
It is one of many seventeenth century closes which were built over in 1753 when the old town of Edinburgh was modernised. The houses were many storeys high and the top storeys were removed and the bottom storeys served as the foundation for The Royal Exchange as it then was - it is now The City Chambers. The site then lay undisturbed until being reopened to the public in April 2003.
You are taken on an organised tour of the site by a guide in groups of about a dozen at a time, leaving from and returning to the gift shop. The tour lasts about an hour.
What is it like?
Well we both thought that it was absolutely brilliant!
Each of the four guides takes on the persona and appearance of someone who actually lived in the street and our guide, Robert, was Walter King who was a 'foulis clenger' which was a person employed by the borough to clean out the houses of plague victims.
He took us through the various houses telling us about the inhabitants and how they lived back in the seventeenth century. He told us about the plague, sanitation, employment, punishment, home life etc.
He was excellent in his story telling, keeping us all interested and he generally teased all of us in the process. He was brilliant though as he knew exactly where to draw the line so that his remarks were always funny but NEVER offensive in any way. I think this is worth mentioning as I would say that this is quite a skill. How many times have you laughed politely at someone cracking unfunny jokes or cringed when they have overstepped the mark with a badly thought out comment?
There was also the occasional scare down there but only things that made us jump rather than really terrifying anyone. We did get to hear a good ghost story too!
I don't want to go into too much detail about the tour itself here as it will spoil it for anyone who wants to try it out.
Towards the end of the tour there was the now obligatory photo taken although as this was in a dark alleyway I don't think that it was good enough to warrant purchasing, but that is the only thing that I can criticize about the whole experience.
The Gift Shop
This contained the usual mix of pens, notebooks, fridge magnets etc. together with items specific to Mary King's Close and to the general nature of the tour such as ghost and history books and various masks.
There is also a small model of the site in the gift shop so that you can get an idea of how the whole thing looks in relation to the modern street. It gives you an idea of the perspective of the whole thing.
Things of Special Note
Since the closes are over two hundred and fifty years old the surface that you will be walking on is uneven and even very steep in places so wear sensible footwear.
There are also a few sets of steps to negotiate so sadly this is unsuitable for wheelchairs. As I said earlier it is also unsuitable for the under fives for obvious reasons and so they are not allowed in this attraction.
You are asked to be in the gift shop at least ten minutes before the time that your tour is set to start and if you are late you will not be allowed to join the tour.
Because this tour is so popular you are advised to book in advance, especially during the busy season.
Final Thoughts
Well I agree with the person who recommended this to us - it was absolutely brilliant! We both thoroughly enjoyed it. It was good fun, educational, scary at times and really quite amazing seeing how real people lived back in plague ridden Edinburgh in the seventeenth century.
If you visit Edinburgh I would definitely recommend that you make time for this amazing tour!
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Maeshowe (Orkney Islands)
by eilidhcatriona
Maeshowe is one of the more famous Neolithic sites on Orkney. It is a chambered tomb constructed around 2700BC, so later than the village of Skara Brae.
Visible from the road, Maeshowe from the outside is a large grassy mound. It is located on the Kirkwall to Stromness road, near the small village of Stenness. The site is ... looked after by Historic Scotland, who have a small visitor centre and shop in the Tormiston Mill building beside the road, opposite Maeshowe.
Entry is by prebooked guided tour only. These run on the hour from 10am to 4pm. You can call to book, or drop into the centre. Car parking is fairly limited, there is really only enough space for one tour group at a time to park. The tours are £5.20 for adults, £4.20 concessions and £3.10 children. We used our Orkney Explorer passes, with my dad getting free entry as my mum was using a wheelchair.
When you book the tour, you're asked to turn up 15 minutes prior to the start time in order to get tickets processed and walk to the tomb - they say it's a 10 minute walk, but for an average person it will take only a few minutes. Perhaps on a nice day you could have a leisurely stroll, but we were there in typical Orkney winds so we went as fast as possible to get out of the wind sooner. The path to Maeshowe is well maintained, gravelly and a bit bumpy but fine for wheelchairs. The last 10 metres are tricky as they are over the ditch surrounding the tomb, and the path is strangely corrugated.
We were told at the centre that wheelchairs were now permitted inside Maeshowe itself, but being permitted and actually getting in are separate matters. The entrance tunnel is rough and bumpy, with some large dips you can't push the chair back out of - wheelchair access was not a consideration in Neolithic times. My mum is able to walk, using a wheelchair enables her to get about more, so she got out and walked through the tunnel, but this of course is not an option for many wheelchair users. Another point to note about the tunnel is that you really do have to stoop quite a lot to get through.
Having studies Maeshowe at school, I had ideas in my head of what it was like. First impression on reaching the end of the entrance tunnel...a LOT smaller than I expected. It looks much bigger on the outside than it does on the inside (a kind of anti-TARDIS then), but also I was sure I remembered images of a much bigger space from what I had learned at school. Our tour group was approximately 12-14, and while everyone fit in comfortably, any more and it would have been feeling cramped.
The interior of the tomb comprises of one main chamber, and three side chambers or cells. There is a barrier around the main chamber so people don't go climbing into the smaller side chambers, but you can see into them quite easily.
Our tour guide had a very informal manner, and I suspect she wasn't at ease with speaking to groups and so developed this to cover nerves. She did however give us plenty of interesting information, some of which I will share here.
It is of course hard to know exactly what many Neolithic sites were used for. Maeshowe was a tomb, but not much else is certain about how it was used. On fascinating fact however is that the entrance tunnel is perfectly aligned so that on the Midwinter Solstice and for a few weeks either side, the sun shines directly onto the back wall of the main chamber.
In the twelth century Norsemen broke into Maeshowe, and may have removed any human remains still there. However they left behind a large number of Runic carvings, which are now part of the history of Maeshowe. These are basically ancient graffiti - some amount to little more than "Thorfinn woz ere"! One sings the praises of a woman named Ingibiorg - "call Ingibiorg for a good time!" - while another, carved high up, points out how great the carver is for managing to write so high on the wall.
Much later the Victorians excavated the tomb, with more enthusiasm than knowledge. Any evidence still there was lost, except one piece of human skull taken by the lead excavator, who later left it on a train. The Victorians also built a new roof, as the original had been smashed, which looks very out of place - it reminded me of roofs seen in some London Underground stations.
Maeshowe is a truly fascinating place. I love that within this Neolithic monument is evidence from other periods of history. It's a very peaceful place, especially with the wind howling outside. A visit to Orkney is not complete without a tour of Maeshowe.
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