The Great Hall
A vaulted ceiling of some two thousand gold stars and William Hole's 1898 frieze parading great Scots from St Ninian to Robert Burns.
Anthony O'Neil — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Anthony O'Neil — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Anthony O'Neil — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Anthony O'Neil — CC BY-SA 2.0
A red-sandstone palace standing alone among the grey, disciplined terraces of the New Town, as if someone had lifted a corner of the Doge's Palace out of Venice and set it down on Queen Street. This was the first building anywhere in the world purpose-built as a portrait gallery: opened in 1889 to Robert Rowand Anderson's design, paid for by the owner of The Scotsman newspaper, while its London counterpart was still waiting for a home of its own. The Great Hall at the entrance is honestly half the visit. The vaulted ceiling is painted with some two thousand gold stars on midnight blue, and running round the walls is William Hole's frieze of 1898, a single procession of great Scots from St Ninian to Robert Burns. Look up first; the paintings can wait. Upstairs the faces come in waves: Mary Queen of Scots and her three husbands, Charles Edward Stuart, the eighteenth century by Ramsay and Raeburn, and the collection's oldest work, a portrait of James IV from 1507. The pleasant surprise is that the gallery does not stop at royalty. The top floor holds contemporary portraits of Scottish actors, singers and athletes, alongside the national photography collection of tens of thousands of images, including rare scenes of Glasgow's slums in the late 1860s. Displays rotate regularly, so what hangs this summer may be gone by winter. Admission is free with no booking, open daily 10:00 to 17:00, with charges only for certain temporary exhibitions. It is an easy place for families: a lift to every floor, a buggy park, lockers for a pound or two, baby-changing facilities and a ground-floor café serving until 16:30. Even in peak August, when Edinburgh Castle is heaving with festival crowds, it stays remarkably calm, and on a wet winter afternoon it is the best hour you can spend under a roof in the city. It sits in the heart of the New Town, two minutes from the St Andrew Square tram stop and about seven minutes' walk from Waverley station. There is no gallery car park; the nearest public one is at the St James Quarter shopping centre. To be plain: if neither Scottish history nor portraiture is your thing, fifteen minutes in the Great Hall alone is enough, and it is worth that detour without hesitation.
A vaulted ceiling of some two thousand gold stars and William Hole's 1898 frieze parading great Scots from St Ninian to Robert Burns.
A red-sandstone Gothic palace opened in 1889 to Robert Rowand Anderson's design, with a nod to Venice's Doge's Palace.
Sixteenth-century royal portraits on the middle floors, contemporary Scottish actors and singers plus the national photography collection at the top.
1 Queen Street, New Town, Edinburgh EH2 1JD
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Yes, within reason. Children love the starry ceiling in the Great Hall, the building is pushchair-friendly with a lift and buggy park, and since entry is free nothing is lost if you leave after half an hour. The upper floors, though, are rows of painted faces that small children tire of quickly.