Actual Education Interactive Guided Tours

The Secrets of a Dark and Dingy Edinburgh Close

"A picture tells a thousand words" goes the old saying but we think this isn't the whole truth. Look at the video showing on this page. It shows a typical Old Edinburgh 'close'. Great! Not very exciting you may think...but this is why you need the informative text and accompanying audio. Find out why this is so crucial after a quick overview of the benefits of audio and text. Remember, most online 'virtual tours' just contain panoramic images!

What are the advantages of having an Interactive Guided Tour with informative text and audio?

• Our CD-ROMs really are just like a 'proper' guided tour - be amazed and informed...from the comfort of your own PC!

• Nothing important is left out. Your tour is complete, detailed and comprehensive.

• If/When you visit the location for real then you'll know where to go to stand where history took place, you'll be able to literally follow in the footsteps of some of Britain's most famous people.

• Text and audio combine to give you a true multimedia experience, helping you understand more about what you are seeing.

Back to the Close!

Let's see what the "Old Town of Edinburgh Interactive Guided Tour" says at this scene (we've highlighted some bits just for your benefit);
"Another iconic close is Anchor’s Close. This was the meeting place of the ‘Crochallan Fencibles’ in the late eighteenth century. Dawnay Douglas had a small tavern here which was very popular – not least for having suppers at 6d a head! It was also notable for having the ‘Crown Room’ where his more important guests could come.

The Crown Room of Dawnay Douglas’s tavern was the meeting place of one of the most famous Old Town drinking clubs – the Crochallan Fencibles. Members of the Fencibles included William Smellie the printer,Adam Smith the ‘father of modern capitalism’, Henry Mackenzie and Lord Monboddo.

Monboddo was quite an interesting character. Although he was an excellent judge he had one little ‘quirk’. Monboddo was convinced that babies were born with tails! He would even pay so that he could watch women give birth. This proved that the midwives didn’t actually cut the tails off as he believed. Whilst this may seem bizarre maybe he was touching on an early theory of evolution…let’s give him the benefit of the doubt anyway!

The Crown Room saw quite a heady mix of Edinburgh’s enlightenment leaders but probably the most famous would have been a certain Robert Burns!

According to Grant’s “Old and New Edinburgh” the tavern proudly exhibited a stool on which Burns sat on whilst correcting the proofs of poems submitted between December 1786 and April 1787.

Advocates’ Close was also where Smellie printed the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica."

(Panoramic scenes showing Anchor's Close from our "Old Town Explorer Interactive Guided Tour". Use your mouse to control this scene. Double click to access the 'full screen' feature.)