Jen Cresswell

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Jen Cresswell

Professional tour guide based in Edinburgh
History, stories, anecdotes - funny and factual

02/07/2025

While Europe is in a heatwave and England is having its hottest days, Scotland is cold and wet. But as we say, no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes. Coats, neck tubes and brollies - all essential for working in tourism

01/07/2025

The guards were out today at to commemorate the start of Holyrood Week, when the monarch arrives in Edinburgh for a week. Expect changes and excitement as royals occasionally move about. Once I made Prince Philip laugh as he drove past by the waving like an eejit.

30/06/2025

In 1558 John Knox wrote a treatise, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women, attacking female rule and, in particular, those of Mary of Guise and Mary Queen of Scots. I joke that I always wanted ‘Proud member of the monstrous regiment of women’ on a tshirt, cos it makes us sound more organised than we were. Well, I now have one. Annoyingly the pink lettering isn’t as pink as I would like, but I do love the tshirt.

29/06/2025

Behind the National Records office at the end of North Bridge is the hidden gem of the archivists garden. It contains 59 plants connected to Scottish records, such as ones that mark births, marriages and deaths, flowers associated with famous Scots, and families via heraldry and tartan. It’s often deserted so is a wonderful place to escape the chaos for a while.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/learning-and-events/the-archivists-garden/

28/06/2025

One of the wellheads of Edinburgh. Historically this was where the people of Edinburgh got their water from. Long queues would form and carrying the water in buckets all the way up the tenements was long and hard. Many therefore hired young boys to collect their water for them. They were known as caddies. And this is the origin of the golfing caddie.

This wellhead is outside the shop for the and so the wellhead has theatre masks on each side.

27/06/2025

It’s so good to see the mast and time ball back and on full view. The scaffolding is slowly coming off the Nelson Monument. Not long now before the ball starts dropping again!

25/06/2025

So Rosie the new pony has changed colour again! She has gone back to black. We can tell the season by the colour of our Shetland.

Or is she a Shetland? Rosie is a rescue and so a lot of her is a mystery. We don’t know if she is a Shetland, a Shetland cross, Falabella or a Miniature Horse. Post your guesses below.

24/06/2025

The weather is a bit iffy at the moment, even by our low standards. So I took people to explore .castle - lots of space and most of it still has a roof so we stayed dry! It’s much quieter than Edinburgh Castle so is perfect if you want a more gentle visit. I would say a quieter visit I was with a very enthusiastic seven year old and she was very audibly excited to be exploring.

23/06/2025

Never have truer words be spoken … our seagulls are fearless and evil - basically flying velociraptors.

22/06/2025

Today in 1861 James Braidwood was killed fighting the Tooley Street fire in 1861. Born in Edinburgh in 1800, Braidwood founded the world’s first municipal fire bridge in 1824, and the London fire brigade in 1834. He died on duty. I call hint he second most famous person you’ve never heard of, given his role in founding the global fire services. I would ask you to guess the most famous person you’ve never heard of, but I doubt you’ve heard of him.

This is James Braidwood’s statue in Edinburgh, complete with traffic cone on head because Scotland.

21/06/2025

Happy Pride!!!

Today was and the city was a sea of rainbows and all the colours as the whole alphabet was out.

It is also the anniversary of the repeal of Section 28 in Scotland in 2000. This law banned, what was termed, ‘promotion of homosexuality’ in schools. In essence it banned all teaching of LGBTQ+ issues; so much so that it could not be mentioned. As a result many q***r teenagers struggled in silence with no knowledge and no one to turn to. Its repeal was a huge step forward to a safer and more open community.

***rhistory

20/06/2025

The stadium for the is pretty much complete. I honestly think this stadium is an engineering marvel as it’s essentially a flat pack stadium built every year from scratch on a cliff edge and in a world heritage site.

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