58 Accessible Edinburgh: A Festival Guide Sights 59
by skylights, have been restored to their original Victorian decor
of deep-green carpets and dark-red walls. The gallery houses
an important collection of European art from the Renaissance
to post-Impressionism, with works by Verrocchio (Leonardo da
Vinci’s teacher), Tintoretto, Titian, Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck,
Vermeer, El Greco, Poussin, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Turner,
Constable, Monet, Pissarro, Gauguin and Cézanne.
The upstairs galleries house portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds
and Sir Henry Raeburn, and a clutch of Impressionist paintings,
including Monet’s luminous Haystacks, Van Gogh’s demonic
Olive Trees and Gauguin’s hallucinatory Vision After the Sermon.
But the painting that really catches your eye is the gorgeous por-
trait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw by John Singer Sargent.
The basement galleries dedicated to Scottish art include
glowing portraits by Allan Ramsay and Sir Henry Raeburn, rural
scenes by Sir David Wilkie and Impressionistic landscapes by
William MacTaggart. Look out for Sir George Harvey’s hugely
entertaining A Schule Skailin (A School Emptying) – a stern dom-
inie (teacher) looks on as the boys stampede for the classroom
door, one reaching for a confiscated spinning top. Kids will love
the fantasy paintings of Sir Joseph Noel Paton in room B5; the
incredibly detailed canvases are crammed with hundreds of tiny
fairies, goblins and elves.
Recent research has suggested that the iconic 1790s painting
of Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch, histori-
cally attributed to Sir Henry Raeburn, may in fact be the work of
French artist Henri-Pierre Danloux.
Each January the gallery exhibits its collection of Turner water-
colours, bequeathed by Henry Vaughan in 1900. Room X is graced
by Antonio Canova’s white marble sculpture, The Three Graces; it
is owned jointly with London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.
There is wheelchair access to all areas of the gallery; you can
plan your visit using floorplans found at https://www.national
galleries.org/visit/gallery.
As part of an awesome outreach program, the Gallery cur-
rently offers monthly programs for both visually impaired and
hearing-impaired visitors; check the events calendar on the
website for details. These usually focus on a particular aspect of
the collection or a new exhibition and are led by expert freelance
artists and educators. Upcoming events can be found at https://
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/events-calendar/hear-
ing-impaired-tour-inspiring-impressionism and https://www.
nationalgalleries.org/whatson/events-calendar/visually-im-
paired-tour-and-workshop-inspiring-impressionism.
Hearing loops are available at all talks, lectures and events.
The Gallery is also looking at introducing BSL tours later in the
year; contact them directly for details.Scottish National Portrait Gallery
http://www.nationalgalleries.org; 1 Queen St; 10am-5pm; St Andrew SqThe Venetian Gothic palace of the Scottish National Portrait
Gallery reopened its doors in 2011 after a two-year renovation,
emerging as one of the city’s top attractions. Its galleries illus-
trate Scottish history through paintings, photographs and sculp-
tures, putting faces to famous names from Scotland’s past and
present, from Robert Burns, Mary, Queen of Scots and Bonnie
Prince Charlie to Sean Connery, Billy Connolly and poet Jackie
Kay.
The gallery’s interior is decorated in Arts and Crafts style,
and nowhere more splendidly than in the Great Hall. Above the
Gothic colonnade a processional frieze painted by William Hole
in 1898 serves as a ‘visual encyclopedia’ of famous Scots, shown
in chronological order from Calgacus (the chieftain who led the
Caledonian tribes into battle against the Romans) to writer and
philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881). The murals on the
1st-floor balcony depict scenes from Scottish history, while the
ceiling is painted with the constellations of the night sky.
The gallery’s selection of ‘trails’ leaflets adds a bit of back-
ground information while leading you around the various exhib-
its; the Hidden Histories trail is particularly interesting.
The Portrait Gallery is generally wheelchair-accessible,
and you can plan your visit using the floorplans at https://
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/visit/scottish-national-portrait-gal-
lery-23551/. However, at the time of going to press, their website
says the lift is currently out of service and that there is no wheel-
chair access to the upper floors.St Cuthbert’s Parish Church
Lothian Rd; all Lothian Rd busesSt Cuthbert’s Parish Church was built in the 1890s on a site of
great antiquity – there has been a church here since at least the
12th century, and perhaps since the 7th century. There is a cir-
cular watchtower in the graveyard – a reminder of the Burke and
Hare days when graves had to be guarded against robbers.
It’s not obvious how you get down to the church until you go
into Kings Stables Rd, from where there is level entry. If you’re
taking the bus and arriving via Princes St and Lothian Rd, you’ll