Palace of Holyroodhouse Forecourt, Edinburgh, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Palace of Holyroodhouse Forecourt, Edinburgh, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Palace of Holyroodhouse Forecourt, Edinburgh, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-DBFFAB

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A group of tourists picks its way across the forecourt of the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on what is plainly a damp Scottish afternoon, the kind of weather that the 1950s British holiday industry had decided to treat as a feature rather than a problem. The royal residence looms behind them in dark ashlar, its crowstepped roofline and clock-crowned lantern tower unchanged since the Stuarts, still serving as the official Scottish home of a monarch who visited rarely enough that the flowerbeds in the forecourt were probably better maintained than any room inside. One figure carries a shopping bag with the cheerful practicality of someone who combined a visit to a palace with errands, which is a reasonable approach to a building where Mary Queen of Scots once watched her secretary get stabbed and nothing quite so interesting has happened since. The 1950s democratised the grand tour to the point where anyone with a coach ticket and a sensible mac could stand in a royal courtyard and feel faintly uninvited, which was precisely the point.

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