THE ROYAL MILE

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THE ROYAL MILE

Leave the esplanade and enter Castlehill at the top of the Royal Mile itself. On your left is Goose Pie House.

This is the house the 18th-century poet Allan Ramsay built for himself, known as Goose Pie House because of its peculiar octagonal shape, now much altered. Some of the extensions and alterations were undertaken by Patrick Geddes-the man responsible for preserving much of the Royal Mile, and a pioneer of town planning-who lived here towards the end of the last century.

On the door of the house, notice the 'tirling pin' on its sounding bracket, as in the rhyme: Wee Willie Winkie rins thro the toun Upstairs and downstairs in his nicht goun Tirlin ' at the window, crying at the lock: Are the weans in bed noo, for its nigh on ten o'clock?

It's a rare survival of the polite form of door knocker from the days when people scratched at each other's doors instead of banging on them.

The house gets its name from a cannonball lodged above the first-floor window facing the castle. Legend has it that the ball was part of the barrage fired by government troops from the castle aiming to dent Bonnie Prince Charlie's bonnet at Holyrood. Unfortunately it's more likely that it marks the gravitational height of the water supply for the old reservoir over the road, a 19th-century tank for the water first pumped into the city in 1681, serving the wells all the way down the Royal Mile.

Opposite Cannonball House is the Tartan Weaving Mill and Spirit of the Tattoo Visitor Centre / Open daily, free admission

The Tartan Weaving Mill & free Exhibition, is situated in the Edinburgh Old Town Weaving Co. right next door to Edinburgh Castle Esplanade.

You can feel and touch the threads that are prepared for weaving, see and hear the amazing high speed powerlooms in action. At our weaver's cottage you can meet a real craftsman and then have a go at making some tartan cloth yourself - a great photo opportunity for your friends and family!

Take your time to enjoy the full exhibition which shows how tartan is woven, from the moment when the sheep is sheared right upto the making of a kilt and the history of Highland Dress Through the Ages.

Upstairs is the Spirit of the Tattoo Visitor Centre. With its interactive exhibition, movie theatre, souvenir shop and rooftop cafe the Spirit provides a fascinating insight into the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. (More information)

The next stop down the hill on the tourist trail, given over to the Scots' favourite tipple, is the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre (open 7 days).

The Scotch Whisky Experience, beside Edinburgh Castle, reveals the history, mystery and romance of Scotch Whisky making. Start by nosing and tasting a Scotch whisky with one of our expert guides who will help you to reveal the secrets in the glass. Find out how the amber, water of life is produced and then one of our experienced tour guides will take guests through the amazing differences between whiskies from the Highlands, Lowlands, Speyside and Islands. Visitors then meet our resident ghost, the Master Blender and enjoy a barrel ride through the history of Scotch Whisky. Our tour is available in 10 different languages.

Relax in Amber Restaurant and enjoy the very best of Scottish produce. For the enthusiast we have our own Whisky Appreciation Society.

Both our Bar and Shop are stocked with over 300 whiskies and whisky liqueurs - something for everyone.

Whisky Tastings and Private Events can be catered for in our beautiful Private Reception Rooms.

Cross the road to visit Camera Obscura and World of Illusions (open every day from 9.30am until 6.00pm and in July and August until 7.30pm).

These two early 17th-century tenements were added to by a lady optician in the middle of the 19th century to become Short's Observatory, whose crowning glory was the Camera Obscura. This Victorian ‘Eye in the Sky’ has fascinated visitors for 150 years with its live moving panorama of the city. You will be captivated by this unique experience as your guide entertains you with stories of Edinburgh’s exciting past. You can spy on people and even pick them up in your hand! You can also enjoy spectacular 360° rooftop panoramas with free telescopes from rooftop terrace.

The building still contains the Camera Obscura in the curious domed turret on top of the tower, but it now also hosts the World of Illusions, three fascinating floors of interactive visual illusions and other hands-on exhibits. You can capture your shadow, shake hands with your ghost, swap heads with a friend and walk on water on the incredible living floor. There is also an impressive collection of holograms. These entrancing 3D pictures appear, change and disappear before your eyes.

You can also discover extraordinary 3D views of Edinburgh and spy on the city from live viewcams which you control to zoom in and out. New exhibits are always being added to the collection including most recently an incredibly amusing automaton of two singing cats with a dog accompanying them on the piano, and a heat detecting thermal camera which shows your hot spots in vivid colour on a giant screen.

Camera Obscura and World of Illusions is open every day of the year with the exception of Christmas Day, from 9.30 in the morning until 6pm with extended opening hours in July and August until 7.30pm. You can see more of the fascinating exhibits on the website: www.camera-obscura.co.uk

Continue to the foot of Castlehill and the Highland Kirk of Tolbooth St John's.

Called the Highland Church because it once held services in Gaelic, St John's has now been rechristened The Hub and converted into the administrative headquarters of the Edinburgh International Festival. This richly decorated neo-Gothic marvel was designed in 1839 by James Gillespie Graham and Augustus Pugin, the man who gave the Houses of Parliament in London their distinctive look. With its skybound steeple and spire, the tallest in the city (240ft), it was built on the site of the Victoria Hall, the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland at the time of the Disruption.

There's a Café and restaurant run by the same people as the Atrium and Blue at the Traverse Theatre, and a general purpose hall for visiting artists to strut their stuff.

Continue down the Royal Mile, past the back entrance to the Church of Scotland's Assembly Hall and the Ensign Ewart pub, to reach the Lawnmarket.

In the Middle Ages this widening of the way was ordained as the place where all cloth (or ilawn') was to be sold. Also on sale were 'butter, cheise, wool and sichlike gudis'. The activity greeting visitors as they emerged from the West Bow and the Grassmarket must have been bewildering. The market was only finally cleared away at the end of the 19th century.

At the top of the Lawnmarket, on the left hand side, is the entry to Mylne's Court.

Now one of the most attractive halls of residence for students at the university, this was once one of the smartest addresses on the Royal Mile. It was designed at the end of the 17th century by the mason who had a hand in Charles lI's extension to Holyrood Palace and it reflected the superior tastes of the well-to-do at the time, and can reasonably claim to be the city's first proper square. It was the subject of award-winning sympathetic restoration in the 1960s, right down to the thick glass in the half-timbered windows

Cross the road again, and on your right is Riddle's Court.

Riddle's Court gives a fair idea of what many of these courts looked like in the 18th century: note the doorway with 1726 inscribed upon it. This is where David Hume bought his first house in 1753 and where he started his History of Great Britain, his readable exercise in debunking a few contentious issues in church history. Deeper within this court you are heading further back in time, to the home of a wealthy 16th-century burgess called John McMorran, who hosted lavish banquets here for King James Vl and his Queen. He met an unexpected end: on 15 September 1595, he went with a group of officers to break up a sit-in by the sons of the gentry at the Royal High School, then situated in the Canongate, who were demanding a holiday. As he approached, they shot him in the head. The protest came to a shocked and abrupt conclusion, but by James Vl's royal command the culprit was never brought to justice, probably because his father happened to be the Chancellor of Caithness.

Return to the Lawnmarket and you are opposite Gladstone's Land (31 March to 30 Jun, daily 10-5; 1 Jul to 31 Aug, daily 10-7; 1 Sep to 31 Oct, daily 10-5).

Gladstone's Land

Gladstone's Land is the best surviving example of a typical 17th-century tenement (apartment block) in Edinburgh. Emphatically not connected with William Ewart Gladstone, the great British prime minister, the place was bought in 1617 by a merchant called Thomas Gladstanes, who was responsible for extending the 16th-century block at the front, supporting it on the two round arches that were once a common feature of most shopfronts on the High Street. It is thought that he lived with his family on the third floor only and rented out the others. The house gives a good idea of how buildings were forced to grow higher and higher because of the lack of space on the narrow ridge, while its stone frontage was a response to the frequent fires in the city.

In 1935 it was one of the first properties to be bought by the National Trust for Scotland, who eventually (in the late 1970s) restored the building to its original state inside and out. Externally, the semi-shuttered and fixed glass windows are the most obvious signs of this work, but it's well worth venturing inside, not least to see the original decoration uncovered on the beamed ceilings: a painted profusion of flowers and fruits in wonderfully mellow colours.

Passing through the reconstructed 17th-century shop, you find youself in a welcoming, intimate house, not particularly grand, where you can easily imagine yourself living quite comfortably, with maybe just a few extra mod cons. There's a one-bedroom holiday flat to let on the fourth floor if you actually want to try. The three rooms that you can visit are on the first floor, which would have been the smartest and most sought after in the block. They're sanitized obviously, with some attempt to recreate the lack of light but thankfully none to recreate the smell of the 'cruisie' lamps, which burned fish oil.

Helpful and well-informed volunteer guides are ready to answer any questions that the fabric and furnishings might provoke, like the sturdy little baby-walker, or the large oak four-poster from Aberdeenshire in the painted room. All the rooms would have been multi-purpose, hence the fold-up bed in the kitchen. Some of the ceilings are made of plaster with mouldings of the same age as those in Moray House (see pp.98-9) and Croft-an-Righ. Three of the ceilings have been painted freehand (rather than stencilled, as was more common). There's also a room decorated as it might have been in 1730, with green panelling, a mirror and sconces.

Leave the shop and turn left and almost immediately left again, down Ladystair's Close.

LADYSTAIR'S CLOSE - see next section: