Holyrood, Midlothian : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Holyrood. You may be able to find further references to Holyrood in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Holyrood royal palace, and remains of abbey Bartholomew

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Holyrood within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Thomas Pennant July 17-23: The Borders and Edinburgh 2
John Wesley 1760-2: Letter to an Editor; Impositions and Declarations; Speaking Statue; Pentecost 1
John Wesley 1765-8: Justice for Methodists; Methodist Character; Instructions to Parents 1
John Wesley 1777-80: On the Isle of Man; City Road Chapel; Wesley Visits Lord George Gordon 1
Thomas Pennant August 7-13: Aberdeen and the North East 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Abbey 0 3
Canongate 0 2
Abbeyhill 0 2
Salisbury Crags 2 1
Calton Hill 2 1
Edinburgh 224 2
Broughton 0 1
Arthurs Seat 2 2
Jocks Lodge 0 2
Duddingston 0 3
Bonnington 0 2
Restalrig 0 2
Leith 33 2
Newhaven 0 2
Portobello 0 2
Morningside 0 1
Craigmillar 1 2
Tynecastle 0 2
Granton 0 2
Liberton 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Holyrood. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
HOLY ROOD Thomas Pennant A Tour in Scotland 1769 (London: Benjamin White, 1776).
HOLYROOD John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.