Blind or partially-sighted visitors at the Palace of Holyroodhouse
The Great Staircase. ©
Mary, Queen of Scots’ Chambers are accessed via a steep spiral staircase consisting of 25 steps.
Stairs to Mary, Queen of Scots’ Chambers ©
Lighting
On dull weather days the light levels in the Palace can be very low.
Flooring and surfaces
The floors inside the State Apartments are either wooden or carpeted with thick pile carpet.
The floor in Holyrood Abbey has gravel chippings.
Holyrood Abbey. ©
As the Palace is an historic building, the floors may be uneven so please take care.
Audio Tour
A pre-recorded Audio Descriptive guide is available for self-led visits around the Palace of Holyroodhouse. We also offer monthly Guided Looking: An Artwork Audio Described short talks- details can be found here.
Non-descriptive multimedia tours, on touch-screen devices, are available for free in:
- English
- Gaelic
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Italian
- Japanese
- Chinese
- Brazilian Portuguese
- Russian
- British Sign Language
Devices are wiped down before use and cleaned on return. Visitors who require headphones are encouraged to bring their own where possible.
For visitors who would like to enjoy the Royal Collection from home a number of audio descriptive pieces, about the Palace, are available here and you can join our monthly Descritive Zoom sessions.
Descriptive Zoom talks for blind & partially-sighted people
The multimedia tour collection point. ©
Assistance animals
Assistance animals are welcome. We recommend that if possible animals wear a jacket or lead slip to identify them as working.
Staff reserve the right to ask visitors to remove their animal if it is deemed not to be behaving appropriately. Arrangements will then be made for the visitor to return without their animal. Please contact [email protected] for more information.
Shops
The shop is located opposite the Café and next to the entrance to The Queen’s Gallery. The shop is on one level with wooden flooring. There is a one-way route in operation through the shop and capacity will be limited. There is a hand sanitiser station at the entrance point and the shop is operating cashless.
Toilets
Accessible toilets are located in the Café. Once you have a ticket there are further toilets in the Mews Courtyard.
