Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh

Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh

Sir William Bruce designed this exceptional palace for Charles II, built between 1671 and 1678, with Robert Mylne as Master-Mason. The work incorporated an earlier tower from 1532 built for James V at the north-west angle. Subsequent alterations were made by Robert Reid, William Nixon, Robert Matheson, and John Fowler. The palace stands as a three-storey structure with an attic storey, arranged in a quadrangular plan. It combines Baroque and Renaissance influences, constructed in sandstone ashlar with moulded dressings and roll-moulded margins.

The principal west elevation features a tower at the south-west corner with a pair of circular angle-turrets that mirror those of James V's tower at the north-west. Both towers display string courses between floors and a dentiled corbel at attic level supporting a castellated parapet above. The corner towers are topped with cap-houses bearing ball-finalled, conical bell-cast roofs. These towers are linked by a recessed two-storey flat-roofed range with a deep mutuled cornice and balustraded parapet. At the centre stands a massive coupled Roman Doric columned gateway, surmounted by a large carved Royal Arms of Scotland and crowned with an octagonal cupola containing a clock-face. Symmetrical facades of three-storey swept-roof chambers rise behind, flanking the two-storey range to the far left and right. The north and south elevations display a regular arrangement of bays. The east elevation features 17 pilastered bays with delicately superimposed Classical orders at each floor. The remains of the earlier Abbey Church adjoin the palace at its north-east angle.

The quadrangle displays formal Classical articulation with superimposed Doric, Ionic and Corinthian pilasters in ascending order across each floor respectively. A colonaded piazza of nine arches runs along the north, south and east sides. The west elevation is pedimented to its central three bays. An elaborate double-headed lantern standard with a stepped octagonal base stands at the courtyard centre.

The roofing comprises graded grey Scottish slate. The piended roofs are fitted with piended-roofed dormers rising to a leaded flat-roof with a broadly regular arrangement of axial stacks and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The entrance to the left of the central quadrangle leads to the Great Stair, which features cantilevered broad stone flights, stone balusters and a richly decorative Baroque plasterwork ceiling executed by the renowned English plasterers John Hulbert and George Dunsterfield.

The first floor contains a processional arrangement of sumptuously decorated and furnished state rooms of national importance, including the royal dining room, throne room, morning and evening drawing rooms and a great portrait gallery. Most rooms feature highly elaborate plaster ceilings, tapestries and ornate chimney-pieces. Within the first floor of the sixteenth-century north-west tower are the Queen's ante-chamber and bed-chamber. The second floor of this tower contains Mary Queen of Scots' timber-panelled and ceilinged outer chamber, bed-chamber and supper room, formerly the Kings' apartments. A fine collection of Baroque furniture is displayed throughout. Royal apartments occupy the second floor. The attic level has been altered to provide smaller apartments. The ground floor contains predominantly services and former servants' quarters.

The boundary treatment includes monumental decorative wrought-iron entrance gates to the north, west and south of the Palace forecourt. The north and south entrances are flanked by tall ashlar gatepiers surmounted by lion and unicorn statuettes, with pedestrian gates flanking these main entries, crowned with moulded piers. A curved ashlar wall with dentiled cornice at the north-west corner provides a backdrop to a bronze statue of King Edward VII. A rubble wall stands to the east, adjoining the boundary wall of Croft-an-righ House to the north-east.