Early Bird Tickets on sale at 9.30am today
History is set to come to life at Edinburgh Castle this winter, as the iconic landmark is illuminated with tales from Scotland’s past. Continue reading Edinburgh Castle to transform into ‘Castle of Light’ this Festive Season
The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) announced its members’ visitor figures for 2018 today. There’s been an average increase of 8.68% on 2017 visits to UK attractions, while attractions in Scotland saw the biggest increase of 19.07%. Overall 138, 823, 297 visits were made to the top 249 ALVA sites in the UK. Continue reading Visitor attractions: London tops but Scotland outperforms rest of UK
Archaeologists believe a late medieval discovery in Edinburgh could shed new light on Edward I’s Siege of Edinburgh.
Continue reading Grassmarket cannonball could shed light on Siege of Edinburgh
Voting has opened for the 2017 British Travel Awards (BTA) and Edinburgh Castle is in the running for an award in the Best UK Heritage Attraction category. Continue reading Vote for Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle retains No. 1 position
Edinburgh Castle has retained its position as Scotland’s top paid for visitor attraction, and jumped up two places in the rankings to be named as the 16th most visited attraction in the UK overall in 2016. Footfall at the historic site exceeded 1.7 million visitors, a 13% increase on 2015.
Scotland’s staffed heritage and cultural assets were well represented in the 2016 leader board, as a total of 14 new Historic Environment Scotland managed attractions joined the rankings for the very first time.
New additions included filming locations Doune and Blackness Castles, better known as Castle Leoch and Fort William in the hit historical time-travelling TV series, Outlander. Both attractions are benefitting from their stardom as a record 90,172 and 30,053 people explored the sites for themselves, a surge of 32% and 39%, respectively, compared to the same period for 2015.
These figures were amongst those released today – Monday 27th March – for UK wide member sites of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA). The association, which releases its figures annually, counts some of the UK’s biggest tourist attractions as members, also revealed that Scottish attractions had one of their best years on record, reporting the greatest increase of 16% and a total of 15 million visitors.
Strong visitor numbers for the same period were recorded at heritage attractions throughout the country. In Inverness, the ruins of Urquhart Castle attracted 396,397 people, St Andrews Cathedral was up 25% year on year to over 46,000 visitors. Elsewhere the 5,000 year old Skara Brae hit a total of 93,375 visitors and more than 52,000 people turned out at Melrose Abbey in the Scottish Borders.
Stephen Duncan, Director of Commercial and Tourism at Historic Environment Scotland and ALVA Board Member, said: “These latest figures from ALVA for last year show that Scotland is a major player in the UK tourism sector. It’s fantastic that Scottish member attractions collectively reported a 16% increase in footfall year on year, with over 15 million visits taking place in total.
“Heritage tourism is a key element in this wider success story. Together our iconic castles, abbeys, palaces and other historic sites, which represent thousands of years’ worth of Scottish history, welcomed over 3.7 million visitors in 2016 alone. Our visitor offering is stronger than ever before and it’s something that we will continue to build upon during 2017 as we mark Scotland’s Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology.”
Bernard Donoghue, Director of ALVA, added: “Like the 2015 figures, Scotland has continued to outperform the rest of the UK with a substantial increase in their visitor numbers. 2016 was a great year for Scottish Tourism – proving that Scotland is reaping the benefits of significant capital investment in attractions and creative programming by its institutions.”
Scotland’s historic sites break tourism record
Scotland’s staffed heritage attractions have drawn in more visitors than ever before. Over the last 11 months a record-breaking four million people have flocked to historic sites across the length and breadth of the country – and more than 1.6 million of them visited top attraction Edinburgh Castle. Continue reading Four million welcomes
Historic Environment Scotland, who operate over 300 Historic Scotland visitor attractions across the country which together help tell more than 5,000 years of Scottish history, have recorded a strong season for visitor numbers. Over a four month period – from April to July – 1,964,118 visitors flocked to attractions throughout the country, from Shetland to the Borders, an increase of more than 169,000 on the same period in 2015. Continue reading Castle is king of visitor attractions – by a Royal Mile
Exciting adventures for Rowanfield
Half of displaced pupils now have temporary new homes
The majority of the pupils affected by school closures have now been allocated new school places by the city council. Arrangements made today now mean that over 4,400 pupils have alternative education provision in place.
Among these are Rowanfield Special School pupils, who will move from Drylaw and will be based at Pilton Youth & Children’s Project tomorrow and Friday.
Plans have also been put in place for Rowanfield pupils to have a full day of outings tomorrow thanks to offers from various Edinburgh organisations. They will be visiting Edinburgh Castle and Dynamic Earth in addition to a trip to the National Museum of Edinburgh (above).
Craig Fletcher, Senior Learning Manager at Historic Environment Scotland, who run Edinburgh Castle, said: “We were recently approached by Rowanfield to ask if we could accommodate a visit to the Castle for their pupils. We normally require 10 days notice but due to the exceptional circumstances our bookings team were able to accommodate them at short notice. We are happy to welcome them and hope they have an enjoyable time exploring this iconic place.”
Details for where Rowanfield will be next week and what they’ll be doing will be confirmed as soon as possible!
Other arrangements conformed include: S1, S2 and S3 pupils from Drummond Community High School will join their senior pupils back at the school tomorrow (14 April). This means all Drummond pupils are now back in their school.
S3 pupils at both Firrhill High and Royal High Schools will return to their schools tomorrow (14 April) and join senior year pupils.
Craigour Park Primary pupils will be going to various other primary schools from Friday (15 April).
All Craigroyston Primary pupils will now be going to Craigroyston High School on Friday.
Braidburn pupils will be relocating to several locations from Friday (15 April). Staff will be contacting parents directly to update them on the arrangements for their own individual child. Transport arrangements are being put in place that will allow children to be taken directly from their homes to their host schools.
Further information on nursery pupils from Craigroyston Primary will be put on the Council website and the Council is hoping to have arrangements for nursery pupils at Castleview Primary in place from Tuesday.
In the past three days the Council has now put in place alternative arrangements for the majority of pupils, with all the arrangements for the schools having been communicated to parents directly and are available on the Council website.
Work is ongoing to identify alternative arrangements for the remaining pupils. The Council anticipates all affected primary and special school pupils will be allocated new school places by Tuesday (19 April) next week as Monday is a Spring Bank Holiday.
Positive discussions have been taking place with the Scottish Qualifications Authority who have agreed that verification and examining visits for all subjects that were due to take place this week will be rescheduled with individual schools.
SQA continues to work with the five schools to provide advice and support, if they require any additional resources. All pupils taking exams will be in their schools with their teachers by tomorrow.
Council Leader Andrew Burns said: “Having rightly prioritised arrangements for those children taking examinations in the coming weeks, the two special schools were next to be addressed and I’m pleased that these are now in place. I want to pay credit to the Chief Executive and his team for their work since Friday on what has been a huge logistical challenge for the Council.
“We have now put in place alternative education arrangements for the majority of pupils, and work continues to identify alternative options for other primary and S1 to S3 pupils. We will communicate to parents as soon as we have further information.
“I fully recognise the significant inconvenience to parents caused by these closures and I want to thank them for their patience as we continue to work through this issue. I’m sure they understand the steps we have taken to ensure the safety of their children.
“The SQA have been very supportive to our situation and I must thank them for the steps they have taken regarding verification and examining visits and help with additional resources.
“I also want to pay tribute again to the response from the organisations, both public and private sector, who have come forward with offers of help and accommodation – most recently Historic Environment Scotland who have today agreed to give a tour of Edinburgh Castle for the children of Rowanfield Special School.”
The programme of structural surveys arranged by the Edinburgh Schools Partnership is continuing this week.
The Council will update parents directly, via text message, the Council website(www.edinburgh.gov.uk/
Nine school leavers to gain work experience at Scotland’s top paid visitor attraction
Historic Environment Scotland celebrated Scottish Apprenticeship Week by offering nine school leavers the opportunity to join the team at Edinburgh Castle on a two-year Modern Apprenticeship. Continue reading Edinburgh Castle Seeks Modern Apprentices
Continue reading Castles set to celebrate life and works of Burns
