National Museums Scotland

The Lamont Harp, or Clàrsach Lumanach (also known as the Caledonian Harp or Lude Harp) is a Scottish Clarsach currently displayed in the National Museum of Scotland. It is believed to date back to the 15th century, and to have originated in Argyll. Along with the Queen Mary Harp and the Trinity College harp, it is one of the only three surviving medieval Gaelic harps.

The Queen Mary Harp (Scottish Gaelic: Clàrsach na Banrìgh Màiri) or Lude Harp, is a Scottish clarsach currently displayed in the National Museum of Scotland. It is believed to date back to the 15th century, and to have originated in Argyll, in South West Scotland. It is one of the three oldest surviving Gaelic harps, the others being the Lamont Harp and the Trinity College Harp.

The Woodwrae Stone (alternatively the Woodwray Stone) is a Class II Pictish Stone (c. 8th or 9th century) that was found in 1819 when the foundations of the old castle at Woodwrae, Angus, Scotland were cleared. It had been reused as a floor slab in the kitchen of the castle. Following its removal from the castle, it was donated to the collection of Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford House. It is now on display at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The Bullion Stone is a late carved Pictish stone, which is unusual in containing a figure; it dates to c. 900–950. It was discovered in 1933 at Bullion field, Invergowrie, during the construction of a road and is now located in the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The image on the stone is unique amongst Pictish stones discovered thus far. It depicts a bald, bearded man on a weary horse, carrying a shield and drinking from a very large drinking horn with a bird's head terminal, a parallel that has been noted to the Torrs Horns, also in the museum, of nearly 1,000 years earlier.

Chambers Street is a street in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the southern extremity of the Old Town. The street is named after William Chambers of Glenormiston, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh who was the main proponent of the Edinburgh Improvement Act (1867) which led to its creation in 1870. A narrow lane named North College Street and three residential squares built in the 18th century—Adam Square, Argyle Square and Brown Square—disappeared in the process. The street is dominated by University and museum buildings. It also hosts a variety of restaurants and venues.

The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in 1866 as the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, renamed in 1904, and for the period between 1985 and the merger named the Royal Museum of Scotland or simply the Royal Museum), with international collections covering science and technology, natural history, and world cultures. The two connected buildings stand beside each other on Chambers Street, by the intersection with the George IV Bridge, in central Edinburgh. The museum is part of National Museums Scotland. Admission is free.The two buildings retain distinctive characters: the Museum of Scotland is housed in a modern building opened in 1998, while the former Royal Museum building was begun in 1861 and partially opened in 1866, with a Victorian Venetian Renaissance facade and a grand central hall of cast iron construction that rises the full height of the building, design by Francis Fowke and Robert Matheson. This building underwent a major refurbishment and reopened on 29 July 2011 after a three-year, £47 million project to restore and extend the building led by Gareth Hoskins Architects along with the concurrent redesign of the exhibitions by Ralph Appelbaum Associates.The National Museum incorporates the collections of the former National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. As well as the national collections of Scottish archaeological finds and medieval objects, the museum contains artefacts from around the world, encompassing geology, archaeology, natural history, science, technology, art, and world cultures. The 16 new galleries reopened in 2011 include 8,000 objects, 80 per cent of which were not formerly on display. One of the more notable exhibits is the stuffed body of Dolly the sheep, the first successful cloning of a mammal from an adult cell. Other highlights include Ancient Egyptian exhibitions, one of Elton John's extravagant suits, the Jean Muir Collection of costume and a large kinetic sculpture named the Millennium Clock. A Scottish invention that is a perennial favourite with school parties is the Scottish Maiden, an early beheading machine predating the guillotine. In 2019, the museum received 2,210,024 visitors, making it Scotland's most popular visitor attraction that year.

Talbot Rice Gallery is the public art gallery of the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. With a 19th-century former natural history museum and a contemporary white cube gallery.

The Potterrow Mandela Centre or Potterrow Student Centre is a students' union building in Edinburgh, Scotland. The building is operated by Edinburgh University Students' Association. The name "Potterrow" recalls a medieval suburb which stood outside the town walls. Its Victorian buildings and street layout disappeared when the University demolished the area for redevelopment in the mid 1960s.Potterrow contains a variety of student entertainment and support services including a shop, a bank, two cafés, Edinburgh's largest nightclub, the University's Chaplaincy, The Advice Place and the main EUSA offices.During the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, the building is used as a comedy venue under the name Pleasance Dome with five performing spaces, operated by the Pleasance Theatre Trust.In 1986, students voted to rename the centre in honour of imprisoned anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela.With its distinctive large Plexiglas dome, the building was designed by noted architects Morris and Steedman and completed in 1973. The centre was refurbished in 2012.

The Collegiate Church of St Mary in the Fields (commonly known as Kirk o' Field) was a pre-Reformation collegiate church in Edinburgh, Scotland. Likely founded in the 13th century and secularised at the Reformation, the church's site is now covered by Old College. The Augustinian monks of Holyrood Abbey held superiority over the church and likely founded it as a centre of education in the 13th century. The church appears to have been raised to collegiate status in the early 16th century. Around this time, recetion of the Flodden Wall brought the church just within the bounds of the city and overlooking the Potterow Port, which was also known as the Kirk o' Field Port. After the church was secularised at the Reformation, the town council acquired its land and provostry. The area became the first site of the town's college: later, the University of Edinburgh. The church is also notable for its association with the murder of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, which took place in the vicinity in 1567. Contemporary illustrations show the church as possessing a saddle-roofed tower. The most detailed illustration, from 1567, also shows a tall choir and lower nave and transept. The church's ruins were removed in the early 17th century. The site is now covered by Old College. Excavations of Old College quadrangle in 2010 found remains that may be associated with the church. In 1969 a church on The Pleasance, Edinburgh, adopted the name Kirk o' Field Parish Church, it is now the Greyfriars Charteris Centre.

Tailor's Hall, is a historic building in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh's Old Town. It was built in 1621 by the Guild of Tailors. It is now in use as a Stay Central Hotel. The main hall was built in 1621, on the south side of the courtyard. Then in 1640, a range of crow-stepped buildings was built on the north side fronting on to the Cowgate. This block, Tailor's Land, was demolished circa 1940 despite attempts by the architect Robert Hurd and others to save it. In 1638 the protest of the National Covenant was drafted there by an assembly of between two and three hundred clergymen, and following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the hall was used as a courthouse of the Scottish Commissioners. The building was used as a playhouse between 1727 and 1753. When that closed, it became a storehouse of the Argyle Brewery. The building is category A listed. In 1998 the building was renovated and developed as the Tailors Hall Hotel, later the Central Hotel. In 2012 it was bought by the G1 Group a Scottish hospitality and leisure operator. After a refurbishment in 2014, Central Hotel was relaunched as STAY Central Hotel, a 3 star hotel with 37 bedrooms.

The McEwan Hall is the graduation hall of the University of Edinburgh, in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It was presented to the University in 1897 by William McEwan, brewer and politician, at a cost of £115,000. Sir Robert Rowand Anderson was the architect. The McEwan Hall is a category A listed building.The design was begun in 1876 and was largely undertaken by George Mackie Watson whilst working in the offices of Robert Rowand Anderson (with the masterplan being by Rowand Anderson himself). It was built using stone from Prudham Quarry, Hexham in Northumberland.The exterior of the D-shaped hall was completed in 1894. The interior, finished in 1897, is built in Italian Renaissance style, and features mural decorations from the hand of William Mainwaring Palin. The central piece of art is a large painted work known as "The Temple of Fame" depicting a great number of philosophers and students. The McEwan Hall organ was built in 1897 by Robert Hope-Jones, and has been rebuilt and modified on various occasions afterwards.Another striking feature of the McEwan Hall is its large dome. On the inside of the dome is a biblical inscription: Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding. Exalt her and she shall bring thee to honour. (Proverbs 4:7). In 2015 the hall and Bristo Square closed for refurbishment and reopened in time for the July 2017 graduations at a projected cost of £35 million. New heating, ventilation and lighting was integrated with the original interior and new seminar rooms created in the basement and below Bristo Square. One of the project's key aims was to provide easy access to all areas, including the second floor gallery. The McEwan Hall is used for graduations, lectures and public talks, some Edinburgh Festival Fringe events and organ recitals.

The Cowgate (Scots: The Cougait) is a street in Edinburgh, Scotland, located about 550 yards (500 m) southeast of Edinburgh Castle, within the city's World Heritage Site. The street is part of the lower level of Edinburgh's Old Town, which lies below the elevated streets of South Bridge and George IV Bridge. Consequently, the Cowgate can be quite gloomy and dark in sections. It meets the Grassmarket at its west end and Holyrood Road to the east.