As Scotland enters its first Level 3 lockdown weekend in months, it has left many families looking to fill the bank holiday with cheap days out to spend with the kids.
The good news is that, as of today, 70% of Historic Environment Scotland’s sites will be open up to the public, including ticketed and over 200 free to access sites.
Further ticketed sites are due to reopen on a rolling basis over the upcoming months.
This includes some of Scotland’s most iconic heritage sites including Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, Linlithgow Palace, Urquhart Castle, St Andrews Castle, and Melrose Abbey.
Where will reopen?
- Aberdour Castle, Fife
- Blackness Castle, West Lothian
- Caerlaverock Castle, Dumfries
- Craigmillar Castle, Edinburgh
- Dirleton Castle, East Lothian
- Doune Castle, Stirling
- Dryburgh Abbey, Scottish Borders
- Dunblane Cathedral, Stirling
- Dundonald Castle, South Ayrshire
- Dunfermline Abbey Nave, Fife
- Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh
- Elgin Cathedral, Moray
- Fort George, Inverness, Highlands
- Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow
- Huntly Castle, Aberdeenshire
- Jedburgh Abbey, Scottish Borders
- Linlithgow Palace, West Lothian
- Melrose Abbey, Scottish Borders
- Skara Brae, Orkney
- St Andrews Castle, Fife
- St Andrews Cathedral, Fife
- Stirling Castle, Stirling
- Tantallon Castle, North Berwick
- Urquhart Castle, Inverness, Highlands
What safety measures will be in place?
Visitors will be expected to wear face coverings in indoor spaces and some enclosed spaces, where social distancing cannot be easily maintained, not accessible.
There will also be initial capacity management on numbers, one-way systems will be in place in some locations, and visitors being asked to use contactless payment where possible.
How can I book?
Tickets should be booked online in advance from the HES website.
To book tickets and for more information on further HES sites reopening visit: restarthistory.scot
What have they said?
Alex Paterson, Chief Executive of HES, said: "Our heritage sites are home to over 5,000 years of history and we can’t wait to welcome visitors back once more, so they can once again experience Scotland’s history.
"As before, there will be measures in place to facilitate social distancing, as well as new innovations to the visitor experience including new audio tours and digital content.
"We know how much people enjoy being able to access heritage sites, and we’ve worked hard to provide a mix of sites across the country, with over 70% of our sites opening up on the 30th and many others on a phased basis over the next few months.
"On the eve of what is a historic reopening, it’s been great to be at the castle to see all the hard work of the teams coming to fruition as we get ready to welcome visitors once more.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here