A trip to Linlithgow Palace in Scotland - the residence of Scottish royalty dating back to the 12th century

Yesterday we took a trip to see Linlithgow Palace, which is in the town of Linlithgow in Central Scotland (its a half hour drive from where we live in Edinburgh).

The Palace is a ruin, although the majority of the walls are still in place and you can explore most of it, as it is maintained by Historic Environment Scotland as a visitor attraction. The majority of the roof is missing and there are basically no internal fittings left, although it is still great to explore. It is constructed of red sandstone and has numerous beautiful carvings throughout (as would befit a palace), unfortunately sandstone does not weather too well, and as such many of them are rather worn.

The Palace has a beautifully ornate fountain at its centre which is totally stunning (above). Some of the carvings have been replaced due to the wear that has happened over time.

The mermaid above is one of my favs.

I also quite like the deer above.

The main internal floors would have been made from wood and as such they are long gone (a fire gutted the place in 1746). The view above shows the different floor levels. Right on the top floor is quite an ornate fire place because the royal apartments were housed in this wing.

The Palace is basically a square building with four corner towers (all of which you can still climb, mostly to the top). The pic above was taken from the top of the highest one, looking down into the internal courtyard. Again, you can see the fountain in the centre. The main entrance way into the castle can be seen in the top left.

The pic above shows one of the 4 corner towers, which house fairly large spiral stair cases. You can see how the window apertures spiral up with the stairs.

The pic above is typical of the internal connecting passageways, which mostly have stone vaulted roofs. In this particular passageway they glass cases present lots of the finds from the various discoveries made here including old clay pipes, coins, glass goblets and the like.

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The pic above shows the remains of the great hall where they would have held banquets and the likes.

The great hall has a huge fire place at one end (above). Those columns are around 4-5 feet high and its about 25 feet across. It must have gave out some heat when it was firing away at full tilt.

Again you can see the lovely carvings on the fire place (above).

There is also an impressive church outside the palace which we didnt have time to explore. I love the golden 'crown' on top of its main tower. That 'crown' has been there for as long as I can remember, but it was always white, and has only been coloured gold in this last year or so. It really makes it stand out even further.

The Palace was one of the royal residences, noting that they had a few. Mary Queen of Scots (one of our most famous monarchs) was born here in 1542, which is pretty cool. The site dates back to the 12th century, although what we see today dates mostly from the 15th/16th centuries.

We only had an hour spare yesterday to look around, and didnt quite get to see it all internally, never mind externally or the other surrounding buildings.

Its also located by a lovely lake, which we keep meaning to walk around, but again didnt have time for yesterday.

I have to say that it really is a lovely place. It was our second visit and we will certainly go back again to explore it better. I'd highly recommend it - its a lovely place to see and has a ton of history.

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