1.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
2.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
3.
Royal Mile
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The Royal Mile is the name given to a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. The name was first used in W M Gilberts Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century, the streets which make up the Royal Mile are Castlehill, the Lawnmarket, the High Street, the Canongate and Abbey Strand. The Royal Mile is the busiest tourist street in the Old Town, running eastwards from the crag, the Royal Mile sits upon the ridge of the tail which slopes gently down to Holyrood Palace. Steep closes run between the many tall lands off the main thoroughfare, the route runs from an elevation of 42 meters above sea level at the palace, to 109 meters at the castle, for an average gradient of 4. 1%. The Castle Esplanade was laid out as a ground, in 1753. It was formalised in 1816 when it was widened and provided with decorative railings, the Esplanade with its several monuments has been A-listed by Historic Scotland. It is the venue of the annual Edinburgh Military Tattoo at which time specially designed temporary grandstands are erected, the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland and New College are further down on the same side, in an architecturally somewhat understated building as seen from this side. The Scottish Parliament met in the Assembly Hall between 1999 and 2004, the Lawnmarket was originally part of the High Street before its separate naming, which accounts for the street numbering being a continuation of the High Street numbers. A charter of 1477 designated this part of the High Street as the market-place for what was called inland merchandise - items such as yarn, stockings, coarse cloth, in later years, linen was the main product sold. As a result, it known as the Land Market which was later corrupted to Lawn Market. Today, the majority of shops in the street are aimed at tourists, on the north side is the preserved 17th century merchants townhouse Gladstones Land owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The south side has a strong Dutch influence in its 17th-century gables, the lower end of the Lawnmarket is intersected by George IV Bridge on the right and Bank Street on the left, leading to The Mound and the New Town. The view down Bank Street is closed by the headquarters of the Bank of Scotland. On the south-west corner of intersection, with its entrance on George IV Bridge, is a new hotel. This building is of controversial design winning both best building awards and carbuncle awards in 2009/10. Between Bank Street and St Giles Street, marking the end of the Lawnmarket, St Giles Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh, also stands in Parliament Square. The prison was described by Sir Walter Scott as the Heart of Midlothian, locals have traditionally spat upon the heart, presumably to express disgust. The custom has been to some extent sanitised by tourist guides who claim that the spitting is merely for good luck, on the north side, opposite St Giles, stand Edinburgh City Chambers, where the City of Edinburgh Council meets
4.
Scottish baronial architecture
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Scottish Baronial architecture is a style of architecture with its origins in the sixteenth century. Castle-like, the draws on the features of Medieval castles, tower houses. Buildings of the style frequently feature towers adorned by small turrets called bartizans, roof lines are uneven, their crenelated battlements often broken by stepped gables. While small lancet windows may appear in towers and gables, large bay windows of glass were not uncommon. Porches, porticos and porte-cocheres, were given the castle treatment. An imitation portcullis on the houses would occasionally be suspended above a front door, flanked by heraldic beasts. This architectural style was employed for public buildings, such as Aberdeen Grammar School. In the 19th century it became fashionable for private houses to be built with small turrets, in fact the architecture often had little in common with tower houses, which retained their defensive functions and were deficient with respect to 19th-century ideas of comfort. The 20th-century Scottish Baronial castles have had the reputation of architectural follies, among most patrons and architects the style became disfavoured along with the Gothic revival style during the early years of the 20th century. The unique style of great houses in Scotland, later known as Scots baronial. Particularly influential was the work of William Wallace, James VIs master mason from 1617 until his death in 1631. He worked on the rebuilding of the collapsed North Range of Linlithgow from 1618, Winton House for George Seton, 3rd Earl of Winton and began work on Heriots Hospital, Edinburgh. He adopted a style that applied elements of Scottish fortification. The Gothic revival in architecture has seen as an expression of Romanticism and according to Alvin Jackson. Some of the earliest evidence of a revival in Gothic architecture is from Scotland, inveraray Castle, constructed from 1746 with design input from William Adam displays the incorporation of turrets. These were largely conventional Palladian style houses that incorporated some features of the Scots baronial style. Important for the adoption of the style in the nineteenth century was Abbotsford House. Re-built for him from 1816, it became a model for the revival of the baronial style
5.
Dunn & Findlay
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Each was also independently successful in his own right, prior to the partnership. The partnership officially lasted from 1894 until 1903 and it was arguably “a marriage of convenience”, Dunn providing the skill, Findlay providing the business connections. James Bow Dunn was born in Pollokshields, Glasgow on 16 January 1861 and his family moved to Edinburgh whilst he was young and there he attended George Heriot’s School. In March 1876 he was apprenticed to the architect James Campbell Walker, in 1887 he came to fame coming a close second to George Washington Browne in a competition for Edinburgh’s Central Library. In 1888 a second competition paid off and he won a commission for the huge Solicitor’s Buildings complex south of the Edinburgh Law Courts, in later life he set up a second practice in Northumberland and specialised in large country houses. He died suddenly on 25 August 1930 a week after a hospital operation, James Leslie Findlay was a son of the Victorian newspaper magnate, John Ritchie Findlay, owner of the Scotsman newspaper. He was born on 30 April 1868 and he was educated at Harrow School and thereafter apprenticed to the eminent Arts And Crafts architect, Sydney Mitchell, who was a close friend of his father. Although most of his work appears to be achieved through nepotism, being commissioned by his father and he was invalided out of the army and thereafter became a gentleman of leisure. He died on 19 September 1952, offices and print-works for the Scotsman newspaper North Bridge and Market Street including the Scotsman Steps
6.
Edinburgh Waverley railway station
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Edinburgh Waverley railway station is the principal station serving Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. Waverley station is situated in a steep, narrow valley between the medieval Old Town and the 18th century New Town, Princes Street, the premier shopping street, runs close to its north side. The valley is bridged by the North Bridge, rebuilt in 1897 as an iron and steel bridge. This passes high above the central section, directly over the central booking hall. The valley to the west, formerly the site of the Nor Loch, is the parkland of Princes Street Gardens. Edinburghs Old Town, perched on a sloping ridge, was bounded on the north by a valley in which the Nor Loch had been formed. In the 1750s overcrowding led to proposals to link across this valley to allow development to the north, the noxious lake was to be narrowed into a canal of running water, with a bridge formed across the east end of the loch adjacent to the physic garden. The loch was drained as work on the bridge proceeded, the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway opened in 1842 with its terminus at Haymarket railway station, stopping short of Princes Street. The North Bridge station was opened on 22 June 1846 by the North British Railway as the terminus for its line from Berwick-upon-Tweed. The collective name Waverley, after the Waverley Novels by Sir Walter Scott, was used for the three from around 1854 when the through Waverley route to Carlisle opened. In 1868 the North British Railway acquired the stations of its rivals, the present Victorian station was built on the site, and extended in the late 19th century. Waverley has been in use since, under the auspices of the North British. From its opening in its current form by the eastward tunnelled extension from Haymarket, from 1870 to 1965 the city had a second major station, Princes Street, operated by the rival Caledonian Railway, but this was never as important as Waverley. As at other railway stations of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The North British Hotel, adjacent to the station at the corner between Princes Street and North Bridge opened in 1902, in 1983 British Rail sold it to the Forte hotel group. In 1988 Forte closed the hotel for a year to extensively remodel, when it reopened it was rechristened The New Balmoral Hotel, maintaining the NB initials in what has proved to be an astute marketing move, despite the hotel being 115 miles from Balmoral Castle. Subsequently, New was dropped from the name, the hotel enjoys commanding views over central Edinburgh and is one of the most luxurious hotels in the UK. There is no longer an entrance from the station
