THE Palace of Holyroodhouse will be holding a special activity day for families on the May Bank Holiday Monday.
This special activity day will celebrate the unicorn, the national animal of Scotland, which can be spotted in objects and in artworks all over the Palace.
All these activities are included with a Palace ticket and take place from 10:00–15:00 on Monday, 6 May.
Activities:
Unicorn hats craft activity where children can discover the tale of the unicorn and craft their own unicorn inspired hat to wear as they explore the Palace.
A fun mini challenge using unicorn hobby horses and jousting.
A special Unicorn family trail which will challenge families visiting to spot all the unicorns on walls and ceilings in the Palace and around the grounds.
Easter Activity Day, Garden Family Trail and £1 Gallery tickets
On an Easter activity day during the holidays, families can take part in arts and crafts activities as well as exploring the gardens of Edinburgh’s Royal Palace with a special family trail.
After taking inspiration from the story of the beautifully decorated Fabergé eggs in the Royal Collection, budding young artists can use paint, glitter and sequins to decorate their own Fabergé-style eggs to take home. A trip to the Palace would not be complete without a crown and children can decorate their own Easter crown to wear as they explore the State Apartments.
The family trail takes children on a journey through the gardens as they begin to spring into bloom and will help them explore the royal history, nature and wildlife of these beautiful grounds. Children can learn about the sun and moon dial which was made for Charles I, as well as exploring the medieval ruins of Holyrood Abbey, one of the most important buildings in Scottish history.
Families can also visit the recently reopened The King’s Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Following a successful run in London, the exhibition Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians explores life in Georgian Britain through the fashions of the day. Items on display include rare surviving items of clothing such as a court dress and items of Queen Charlotte’s impressive jewellery collection.
Also on display is a sword made for George IV’s historic visit to Edinburgh and a full-length portrait commissioned to mark the occasion.
As part of the organisation’s charitable aim to ensure that as many people as possible can access and enjoy the Palaces and the Royal Collection, Royal Collection Trust has launched a new scheme of £1 tickets, available to those receiving Universal Credit and other named benefits.
The £1 ticket offer is available for up to six people per household when visiting The King’s Gallery in 2024, making this an affordable way for families to visit the Gallery during the Easter holidays.
The Extravagant Eggs craft activity will run in the Family Room on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the weeks Monday, 1 – Saturday, 13 April, 11:00–15:00.
The Easter activity day will be on Saturday, 30 March, 10:00–15:00.
This weekend, Royal Collection Trust staff will spend over 30 hours changing clocks across the official residences of His Majesty The King as British Summer Time comes to an end.
A busy team of three Horological Conservators will work through the weekend to adjust the clocks at Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
The Royal Collection contains some of the finest historic clocks in existence, many of which are on display to visitors at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
They include musical clocks, astronomical clocks, miniature clocks and turret clocks, and each must be carefully changed by hand to ensure that the times shown remain accurate for visitors, staff and residents.
Tjeerd Bakker, Senior Horological Conservator, said, ‘Clockmakers have been employed by the Royal Household for centuries, and it is a privilege to continue that tradition and to get to work with this extraordinary collection every day.
“Visitors love the fact that the clocks are kept running and on time; they are a key part of the experience of visiting the State Apartments at these working royal residences.’
Clocks in the Royal Collection – facts and figures
There are over 1600 timepieces in the Royal Collection, including 450 at Windsor Castle, 350 at the London residences of His Majesty The King and 50 at the Palace of Holyroodhouse that will need to be changed this weekend.
In wintertime, it takes Windsor Castle’s Horological Conservator over 18 hours to change the clocks there, while at Buckingham Palace and St James’s Palace it takes a team of two a combined 16 hours.
It takes longer to change the clocks in wintertime as not all clocks can have their hands rotated counterclockwise; the best practice for these clocks is to stop them and return an hour later to start them again.
The clocks in the kitchens at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace are always set five minutes fast, to ensure that food arrives on time.
The oldest clock in the Royal Collection is the Anne Boleyn Clock, which is reputed to have been given by Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn on the morning of their marriage in 1532.
The smallest clocks in the Collection are the tiny clocks in Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, which is on display to visitors at Windsor Castle. Made by Cartier, they measure just centimetres high and have working mechanical movements, but as they would need to be wound daily, they are kept static to prevent unnecessary wear and tear.
The largest clock in the Collection is the Quadrangle clock at Windsor Castle, which was built by Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy in 1829 and installed during George IV’s extensive restoration of the Castle. The clock face has a diameter of 2.14m.
One of the most important timepieces in the Collection is known as Queen Charlotte’s watch. This unique pocket watch was the first to have a lever escapement and as such is the forerunner of almost all modern wrist and pocket watches.
One of the most complex clocks is an 18th-century astronomical clock purchased by George III. The clock has dials on all four sides and is able to show time, strike the phase of the moon, the day and the date, and can show high and low tide in 32 ports around the world.
