Cake Goes Underground!

Calm before the cakey storm!

We've hosted some unusual events at The Real Mary King's Close before, but we never thought that cake would be a major feature for us to theme an event! 

How wrong were we?!  Last night we welcomed the fantastic Edinburgh Cake Ladies to The Close for a belated Halloween celebration of cake and savoury goodness! The talent was endless with some of the most elaborate cakes we have ever seen.

Entertainment was provided by Elliot Bibby, a local young magician who entertained with his feats of magic and mystery.

Between munching cakes and drinking tea, the Cake Ladies (and the younger guests) explored The Close, hearing tales of young Annie and Andrew Chesney's famous thunderbox.

Local charity, and nominated charity of the Edinburgh Cake Ladies, Its Good to Give raised £250 from the nights precedings which made us all feel that we were worthy of enjoying the delicious baking!

As one of our tour guides said after the event: "When I heard the Cake Ladies were visiting, I expected a group of ladies from the WI, complete with their old-school doilies.  This was so much more - AMAZING!!"  Hear, hear and thank you to them all for visiting....and being such wonderful bakers!

Thank you also to Alex Hewitt for taking the photos in the challenging, sorry, atmospheric light of the Close!!!

 

Our tour guides view the delicious spread!

One particularly talented Cake Lady Lou recreated the Close in cakey form! It tasted as good as it looked!

A plea for votes!

Staff take to the Close 'X Factor' style to secure your vote

If you've been on our Twitter feed or Facebook page it won't have escaped your attention that we are thrilled to have been nominated for the British Travel Award for Best UK Heritage Attraction 2012.    There's under two weeks left to vote, so our staff took to the Close to campaign for your vote! 

Craig Miller our General Manager had this to say: “It is hugely prestigious to even receive a nomination in this category, as the UK has so many wonderful heritage attractions, but we made it down to the top four, and we’re just hoping that we get enough support to make it all the way to the top spot,” comments general manager, Craig Miller.  “We don’t quite have the profile of some of the other shortlisted candidates –which includes St Paul’s Cathedral in London – but we make up for that with a visitor experience that is second to none, combining an unseen tour of Edinburgh’s buried streets and some of the best tour guides in the country!”

If you could take 5 minutes to vote for us, we would really appreciate it, you could also be in the running to win a fantastic prize from the British Travel Awards. Click here to make your vote count! There are plenty of reasons why we deserve your vote!

If you could spare a vote for our sister attraction Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth that would be marvellous - they've been nominated in the Best UK Leisure Attraction category.

THANK YOU - we very much appreciate your support!

 

The September Sigh of Relief!

So we're into September, the Royal Mile is back to normal and there is more than an Autumnal feel in the air.

RMKC Team celebrate record numbers in the style of Olympic champion Usain Bolt

For most tourism businesses and restaurants in Edinburgh, a collective sigh of relief is taken in the first week of September as the many festivals of August have finished and the tourists and performers have long gone home.  For us here at the Close, we're back to normal opening hours - 10am to 9pm (last tour) rather than 9am to 11pm (last tour) and we're reflecting on the August whirlwind! 

We welcomed a record number of people, exceeding our previous records for amount of tickets sold in a day and the amount of visitors on the tour in a day.  We've had some great feedback with 95% of our visitors saying they would recommend a visit to their friends or family, which is a testament to our fantastic team of tour guides, retail staff and managers.

One of our tour guides, Marc McKinnon who plays Walter King, the Foul Clenger, put it well -

"So the Fringe Festival has been and gone, and what a busy time it has been. Luckily for us Foul Clengers, we are used to treading through thousands of bodies each day, so it was just another day at work!

Although a completely hectic time of year, both for tourists and attractions alike, it has been so much fun to see all the staff come together and work long hours and deliver some brilliant results on tour - to the masses - daily.

Extending our opening hours as usual allowed more people to come on tours and allows more people to experience our amazing attraction. So, when all is said and done, it has definitely been a win/win, for our tourists and for our attraction, and I feel privileged to be part of our guiding team at the Close"

The 'Hoff' and the team!

One of the highlights of August at the Close was welcoming a special guest to the Close.  Of course all of our visitors are extremely special but we welcomed the legendary David Hasselhoff and his team to the Close for a tour.  The Hoff was a treat, spent time having his photo taken with staff and was a welcome morale boost at a frantic time of year!  

More Than Meets the Eye to our Tour Guides

Our tour guides quite rightly receive fantastic praise from our visitors, with 89% of our visitors in June 2012 rating them as 'very good' in our visitor research, but there's more than meets the eye to a lot of our brilliant team.

They come from all walks of life with some guides being students working with us on a part-time basis, a few are Mums returning to work after their little ones have started full-time education, quite a few are training to be actors and some have a background in history and archeology.  What they all have in common however is a passion for our unique attraction and a passion to tell the fascinating truth of Mary King's Close.

Don't be fooled into thinking they just follow a script.  Yes, they all start out with the same script of facts and stories but our guides put their own spin on the part of a full researched one-time resident of Mary King's Close.  

Agnes Chambers The Maid

Each tour guide character has its own distinct theme: Walter King is a Plague Cleaner, or Foul Clenger - a gritty soul who has one of the toughest jobs in Edinburgh's history.  Jonet Nimmo is the youngest daughter of Mary King and has had a comparatively easy upbringing on the Close (as easy as life could be in the 17th Century!).  Jonet is joined by Agnes Chambers, a maid in the Cant family home and witness to all the inside information on one of Edinburgh's most prestigious of families. Stephen Boyd is a wine merchant - who dresses in the finest cloth and will probably sell you some of his finest claret - and Robert Fergusson the Poet will give you the inside scoop on his greatest admirer, Rabbie Burns.

Research is always ongoing - if you have a question about the Close or 17th century Edinburgh you can just ask.  If we can't answer your question straight away, we'll find out the answer and let you know.

Jonet Nimmo, Mary King's Daughter

Anyway back to our tour guiding team, with August and the Festival Fringe in the offing, our team are heading into our busiest time of year (pre-booking strongly recommended at this time of year!).  But if that wasn't enough, some of them are starring in productions as part of the worlds biggest arts festival.  These productions are in no way connected to The Real Mary King's Close but if you're in town in August and looking for something a little bit different why not give these productions a try - 

Marc McKinnon (a Foul Clenger) in Smile-In Production's 'I Got It - An Actors Tale' at Stockbridge Parish Church from August 9th to August 11th 2012 at 7.30pm

Paul Vickers (another Foul Clenger!) in his own absurdist comedy show 'Twonkey's Kingdom' at the Alternative Fringe at the Hive from August 2nd to August 26th 2012 at 3pm (disclaimer: not for the easily offended!)

Connor Jones (Stephen Boyd) stars in Two Squared Production's  'Wind in the Willows' at Paradise in Augustines on George IV Bridge from August 14th to 19th 2012 at 18.50

For more information on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe click here (other productions are available!)