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A teacher wrote it
Over twenty years in an Edinburgh primary classroom, trained at Moray House on the Canongate. Every tour authored and resourced by Robert himself. Not bought in, not borrowed.
Private & school walking tours
Discover Scotland’s history on our award-winning Edinburgh tours
I’m Robert. I’ve taught in an Edinburgh classroom for over twenty years, and I wrote every one of these tours myself, straight from the original sources. They are private, so it is your group and me, nobody else.
- Local Edinburgh guide
- Private groups only
- Wheelchair-accessible routes
Research and resources contributed to television programmes and books, and local history talks given at the Museum of Edinburgh.
Why this one
Every other tour in this city is a performance.
This one is a lesson, taught outdoors, in the closes it actually happened in, by the person who wrote it.
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The evidence comes with you
Archive images, old maps and primary sources are handed round as you walk. It is the same material the tour was built from, so you get to look at the proof, not just hear the story.
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It is your tour
Private groups only. Ask anything, stop anywhere, take it at your pace. Ten o’clock or two o’clock starts, and routes that work for wheelchair users.
The tours
Seven ways into the same city.
Prices are from-prices for one person and include everything. Bigger groups, different start points and different times are all fine. Just ask.
Most booked
The New & Old Towns
The full picture: both UNESCO World Heritage towns, Calton Hill, the Royal Mile, and the space to go deep on whatever grabs you.
See the route
Old Edinburgh
The Old Town and the characters, famous and infamous, who have run it, robbed it and rebuilt it since 1437.
See the route
The Royal Mile
Holyroodhouse to the Castle esplanade, in and out of the closes and wynds most people walk straight past.
See the route
Greyfriars Kirkyard
Bodysnatchers, murderers, Covenanters, and wee Greyfriars Bobby too. One kirkyard, an hour and a half, and a lot of it is family history.
See the route
Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Edinburgh
1745, and a city that changed hands. Made for Outlander viewers, Jacobite readers, and locals who think they know the place.
See the route
Slum Life in Victorian Edinburgh
The other side of the Victorian story: the injustices and hardships our nineteenth-century ancestors lived with, a few streets from the postcard.
See the route
Bespoke & large groups
Built around your interest, your start point and your timing. Societies, work trips, families over from abroad, university groups.
Tell me what you wantWhat you carry
The tour comes with its own evidence.
Robert built every route from primary sources: engravings, maps, photographs, records. Those same sources come out of the bag as you walk, so you can hold the thing being described while you stand where it happened.
He has contributed research to television programmes and books, appeared on Dutch television, and given local history talks at the Museum of Edinburgh.
The guide
One guide. Every tour.
You will not be handed to a subcontractor. Robert is the whole company: he researched it, he wrote it, and he is the one who turns up.
Born within view of the Old Town and an Edinburgh resident all his life, he studied primary education at Moray House on the Canongate and has taught in a local primary school for over twenty years. Some of the stories in Greyfriars Kirkyard are his own family’s.
20+Years teaching
99%Reviews ‘Excellent’
1Guide, always
For teachers
A class trip run by someone who teaches your class.
Five Curriculum for Excellence tours, built the way a primary teacher would build them: pupils working in pairs, handling evidence, reaching their own conclusions. Not a lecture with thirty children behind it.
- £3
- Per pupil. Accompanying adults go free.
- 5
- Tours: Castles (First Level), Old Edinburgh, Mary Queen of Scots, the Jacobites, and Victorian slum life.
- 2
- Start times, 10am or 2pm, so you can build it round the coach.
Tripadvisor
Ninety-nine per cent say ‘Excellent’.
“Local knowledge meant that on my tour I was shown the nooks and crannies… worth every penny and more!”
“The tour lasted for two hours but the time flew by… The tour that really does tick all the boxes. And it’s fun too!”
“Our private tour… was AMAZING! Best tour each of us has ever been on.”
“I am a wheelchair user… I don’t feel as if I missed out on anything and was very happy.”
Booking
Pick a tour, pick a morning.
Tours start at ten o’clock or two o’clock. Tell me who is coming and what you are interested in, and I will shape the walk round it.
One
Choose your tour and a date, and book online in a couple of minutes.
Two
Tell me your group, any access needs, and anything you are especially keen to see.
Three
We meet at the agreed spot and walk. Everything you need is in my bag.