At home with InstantAtlas in EdinburghAs the festive season approaches we have brought a little bit of Edinburgh to your doorstep to give you a feel for what happens in Scotland over the holiday break. You may not know that until the 1950s Christmas was not celebrated in Scotland. Oliver Cromwell, who ruled United Kingdom banned Christmas in 1647. Although the ban was lifted in England with the fall of Cromwell, Scotland continued with it. The Presbyterian Church in Scotland discouraged Christmas celebrations and people who went against it suffered severe punishments. It wasn't even a public holiday until 1958 so if you want a traditional Scottish Christmas, you should go to work on Christmas Day. A lot of our Christmas customs have come from either the US or England. Conventional Christmas lunch includes Scotch broth, smoked salmon, roast turkey, roast potatoes, carrots, brussel sprouts, Christmas pudding and brandy custard. A Pudding known as Clootie dumpling is a traditional Christmas dessert in Scotland. Children eat it with custard sauce while adults prefer rum or whisky with it. Bannock cakes, made of oatmeal, are also traditionally eaten during Christmas.
Each year, Edinburgh hosts the biggest New Year street party in the world, known simply as Edinburgh's Hogmanay. Over 100,000 revellers enjoy music in Princes Street Gardens and, across the city at midnight, firework displays on all seven of the hills surrounding the city.
With ice and snow a regular feature of Scottish winters, we are never too far away from a snow-capped peak. Last year several InstantAtlas staff took advantage of the Christmas break to don warm weather gear and venture into the snow. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what they got up to. Did you know?
Edinburgh Castle, which dominates the city skyline, is the most popular visitor attraction in Scotland, with well over one million visitors each year. The Royal Yacht Britannia served the Royal Family for over forty years (1954-97) and is the last in a long line of Royal Yachts. Its new permanent home is at Ocean Terminal in the historic port of Leith, where visitors can explore every deck and see many pieces of royal history.
Scottish novelist and poet Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. |
Sean Connery grew up in Edinburgh and, as a boy, delivered milk to Fettes College, where the fictitious character of James Bond was educated.
JK Rowling, author of the famous Harry Potter books, wrote her first novel 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' in a café in Edinburgh.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh. Like his father, Bell was an educator of the deaf. He went first to Canada and then to the United States, where in 1873 he was appointed a professor in the School of Oratory, Boston University.
In the Old Calton Burial Ground, in the centre of Edinburgh, there is a memorial to the Scottish soldiers who died in the American Civil War and a statue of Abraham Lincoln - the first one erected outside the USA.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was born in Edinburgh and is said to have modelled the famous detective on Professor Joseph Bell, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Some of the movies to have been filmed in Edinburgh and the surrounding district include 'The 39 Steps', 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', 'Jude' and 'Mary Reilly', and the television series of ‘Rebus’ novels by Ian Rankin. For all the latest updates follow us on |
