Travel review: Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, Scotland
Rating: *** (out of 5)
Review by: Alexa Williamson
With parts of it dating from the 12th century, Holyrood Palace is everything that a royal residence should be – magnificent and wonderfully decorative.
Entry into the palace is enchanting as a “small but perfectly formed” building emerges in front of you. With its pointed towers, it sprawls over well manicured, dark green grounds with Arthur’s Seat in the backdrop.
Although it’s still used by the royals when they visit Edinburgh, Holyrood Palace’s most famous occupants were Mary, Queen of Scots and King James V (the originator of the King James Bible – the first bible to be Protestant and written in English instead of Latin).
About a dozen rooms are open for viewing with the dining room and its original George V silver, brightly polished and displayed proudly on the long table, being my favourite due to it still being a ‘usable’ dining room today. The king’s closet is also sumptuous with its 18th and 19th century music ensemble of piano and harp, Delft tiles in the fireplace and Dutch carvings above it. Those who love historical lineages will enjoy a stroll through the king’s hall with all of the paintings of Scottish royals and Mary’s chambers, which are dimly lit and ornately decorated in deep red fabrics, are also intriguing. Her bedroom is a haunting corner of the palace’s attic which includes a dark, carved desk and amazingly detailed tapestries and a canopied bed, while her ante-chamber houses a stunning portrait of her donned in a deep red satin dress.
I gave Holyrood Palace a lower *s rating because it reminds me of several other stately homes I have been to (all of which have lots of darkly coloured paintings of their owners, many faded tapestries and busy-patterned red rugs).
However, what extremely impressed me though was the knowledge of the stewards in each room. They could answer any question thrown at them in great detail. For example, one fresh-faced uni student told me that the wall that separated the back garden from Holyrood Park was called a ‘haha’, it was eight feet high and was covered by grass intentionally so that it blended into the garden.
Holyrood Palace is easy to reach as it’s situated at the bottom of the Old Town’s High Street (also known as The Royal Mile) and makes a great time-out from the rest of one’s busy sight-seeing itinerary and has the added bonus of having a beautiful park behind it that can be visited right after walking the grounds and halls that has housed many a royal through the centuries.
Further information:
Holyrood Palace (official site)
Holyrood Palace history (Wikipedia)
