The Royal Mile

A case could easily be made for its being the birthplace of the city. The chapel was constructed on the orders of Queen Margaret, the saintly Saxon wife of Malcolm 111 Canmore, but was not finished until about 20 years after her death in 1093. Brought up in Hungary, she is credited with bringing some continental sophistication into Scotland and was renowned for her charity, regularly feeding 300 beggars a day at the castle gates. Her son David I relocated the royal court here from Dunfermline and founded Holyrood Abbey. Robert the Bruce had the rest of the castle destroyed by the Earl of Moray, but relented over the chapel and ordered its restoration. It has been restored several times since, most recently in 1993 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of Margaret's death.

The interior has not been radically altered since the days of David 1. The shafts of the chancel arch are 19th century, but the arch itself, with its zigzag teeth, is probably original. The beautiful stained glass is 20th century, by Douglas Strachan (who also did much of the glass in the War Memorial, see below), and shows William Wallace in the company of saints Andrew, Ninian, Columba and Margaret. Anyone called Margaret can join the St Margaret's Chapel Fellowship and contribute to the flowers placed in the chapel on her saint's day, 16 November.

Scottish National War Memorial

On the north side of Crown Square, the castle's inner sanctum, the strong Gothic facade of the Scottish National War Memorial is impossible to mistake. Even the muffled crackle of fellow visitors' audio-guides hardly detracts from this moving place. The building itself, designed by Robert Lorimer in the 1920s on the site of the castle's church, has been justly described as a piper's lament in stone. Inside, the names of about 150,000 Scottish soldiers who gave up their lives in the two world wars are recorded in leather-bound books beneath regimental bays illuminated by stained glass. The windows alone, many of them by Douglas Strachan, are worth close examination: they include the Women's Window, showing a shell factory and workers in the fields, and dispassionate depictions of the machinery of war. Beyond these Halls of Honour, the heart of the memorial is founded on the solid castle rock, with a shrine containing the names of the dead on Rolls of Honour.

Honours of Scotland

The Honours of Scotland exhibition is also in Crown Square. The exhibition is cunningly arranged to ensure everyone in turn gets a decent look at the crown, the sceptre and the sword, recently joined by the Stone of Destiny, but it can be quite a long haul. Part of the crown was used at the coronation of Robert the Bruce, making it considerably older than the one in London, and it was last worn by Charles 11 on I January 1651. The sceptre and its dazzling globe date from two centuries before that, while the intricately carved sword of state was a present from Pope Julius 11 to James IV.