During my Edinburgh trip, I spent a couple of exciting hours touring the Old Royal High School. You could call this 200-year old building Edinburgh's Parthenon, very visibly perched on the crags of Calton Hill overlooking the city. The last RHS schoolboys moved out (to a new school in the northwest of the city) in 1968; which we tourists thought just as well, as it's alarming to think about teaching in a building which had, for instance, no corridors between classrooms (a former pupil in our group explained "well, we just had to go outside to get to our next lesson". ) Another health and safety headache must have been the 30-foot drop from the scenic front portico onto the jagged rocks below.
A very long running saga attended the following 55 years while this truly historic monument lay empty, including the possibility that it would become the Scottish Assembly, and then the Parliament. Again, we felt, walking round the site, that this would have been limiting for the activities of a full national legislature, "iconic" though the location is.
The most recent incarnation however has proved to "have legs"; as a National Centre for Music, with a concert hall, recital and rehearsal rooms, cafe, and so on. Planning permission has recently been finalised, and funding for the conversion is well on the way to completion. We musicians on the tour, reflecting on yet more Creative Scotland cuts, hoped that there would also be funding after this point to keep such a brilliant resource in full operation. Still, an optimistic development to look forward to, expected to open in 2027.
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