Your First Level Old Edinburgh tour itinerary 1 – Welcome and the Greyfriars Bobby story Robert will meet your class in front of the grave of Greyfriars Bobby. He’ll welcome the class and introduce himself. We’ll also discuss expected behaviour standards and outline what the tour will involve. This Edinburgh tour features stories and activities. Our first story will introduce Greyfriars Bobby – one of the most popular ‘Old Edinburgh’ stories. But all is maybe not quite what it seems… Robert will introduce different theories about what happened to the faithful wee Skye Terrier and let the class decide on the story they think was most likely. What a great way to start thinking like historians! 2 – Using the memorials as evidence. We’ll move down next to some of the most ornated memorials in the Kirkyard. Robert will let the class look for clues on one of the first memorials in Greyfriars. Pupils will work with their partners to figure out gravestone ‘fashions’. 3 – The Flodden Wall as evidence. Greyfriars has one of the best-preserved sections of the Flodden Wall. Your class will find out why the wall was built, as well as discover why it wasn’t particularly useful. 4 – Life expectancy in Old Edinburgh The final part of our work in Greyfriars will involve the children selecting names from one of the graves in the Covenanters’ Prison. Robert will then read out the age at death of each of these people. Will you pick the person who lived the longest? It’s very enlightening. We can also look at the bodysnatchers’ story if you feel this is of interest to the group. Robert will make this as age- appropriate as possible. 6 – Gordon of Rothiemay’s 1647 birds-eye view of Edinburgh and a ‘then and now’ comparison. Robert will give out the laminated booklets, which we will use to analyse different pieces of evidence throughout the rest of the tour. Pupils will work in pairs, and each partner will have a separate booklet. We’ll look at Edinburgh’s map in 1647 and use the buildings and cityscape around us to work out where we are on this map. Our next evidence work will involve comparing a hundred-year-old photograph of Greyfriars Kirk with what we see today. 8 – The Kirkyard has been a great place to investigate some of Edinburgh’s history, but now we’re out and about in the Old Town. We’ll compare the map to our walk down Candlemaker Row, and then we’ll examine the Grassmarket in 1647 and compare it with the Grassmarket we will see today. 9 – The West Bow is one of Edinburgh’s most historic Old Town streets. We’ve got part of an archive image which shows the West Bow as it would have looked around two hundred years ago. We’ll compare this to what we can see around us as we move up the West Bow. This lets us discuss how the West Bow once looked. 10 – After a wee climb, we emerge onto the historic Royal Mile. The Royal Mile at the Ovir Bow is often a busy area, but we’ll find a space where we can find out about how this area looked to Mary, Queen of Scots. She was here a few times, and the class will hear a couple of stories about her time in Edinburgh. We can also compare the location with two pictures that show the Bowhead at different periods in history. 11 – Robert will take you to Riddle’s Court – a great little area. We’ll have a look at the exterior of this building, hopefully also the outside of the inner court. The outer courtyard is quite secluded and gives the class a chance for a snack and some downtime. We’ve got two stops left on our Edinburgh walking tour – and they are usually our most popular! 13 – We finish our tour by collecting in the laminated sheets and then visiting an Old Town close. We’ll keep walking distance to a minimum by visiting Fisher’s Close. We’ll look at 18th-century living conditions including plumbing (or lack thereof) and the ever- popular ‘guardyloo’ story. And we have a prop which the kids usually love to see. 12 – We do have the option of visiting the site of the Tolbooth Prison. We’ll use images and the gold-coloured bricks (known as ‘setts’) in the ground to retrace the walls of this prison. If it’s quiet, we can get the class to stand around some of the walls and ‘recreate’ the prison! Deacon Brodie was hanged here and, if you wish, we can tell a quick story about his execution, or Robert can tell the children about how yukky it was to stay here. Your First Level Old Edinburgh Activity Tour finishes on the steps of Advocate’s Close. Everything about this tour is customisable. We appreciate you may have pupils with SEN and also some with mobility issues. Where possible, Robert will offer route alternatives – sometimes for individual pupils and their support worker. If you have stories you want us to cover, let us know. If you want to trim the tour, we can. With enough notice, most things are possible. Skills recap On this tour of Edinburgh, your class will use the following artefacts as pieces of historical evidence; Gravestones in Greyfriars Kirkyard The Flodden Wall (Replica) Thumbscrews Mortsafe We also use these sources from the Historic Edinburgh Tours archive; Gordon of Rothiemay’s ‘birds-eye view’ of Edinburgh in 1647 Archive images of Greyfriars Kirk Archive images of the West Bow Archive images of the Bowhead House John Kay’s caricature of Deacon William Brodie Archive image of the Tolbooth Prison List of resident’s of Advocate’s Close from ‘Directory of Edinburgh in 1742’ by Some of the skills used; Reading a gravestone and making conclusions about the person remembered there. Comparing archive photos of a building with that building now Understanding what things impact upon life expectancy and understanding the difference between ‘‘possible’ life expectancy and ‘average’ life expectancy Comparing an almost 400-year-old map with the city today Comparing archive images from different periods with the area they see today Using clues in a historic caricature to make conclusions about the illustrator and of the person illustrated We know that travel costs can be considerable. Most of our Edinburgh tours can be made to ‘fit’ around other experiences you may have booked up, giving you two ‘trips’ but only one set of travel costs. If you’re looking for some ideas, please check out Riddle’s Court, Edinburgh Castle, the Museum on the Mound and the Museum of Scotland. The Museum of Scotland often has availability for their lunchroom, and you can take a self-led tour there with no cost. They also have some of the cleanest and safest toilets in the city…