Scottish Storytelling Centre & John Knox House

Scottish Storytelling Centre & John Knox House review

Through the unassuming doorway and past a bright café selling organic and homemade food, a light, airy space holds a free permanent exhibition entitled 'Scotland's Stories'. It's full of mini tableaux behind doors, and touchy-feely boxes for the little ones; there's also a sound and vision display on Robert Louis Stevenson. There are myriad treasures in the rooms, leading off a turnpike stair complete with a trip-step - a 17th-century burglar alarm - and doors with false locks to foil intruders. Look out for the Tower of Destiny, with its gruesomely jolly representations of the final moments of Knox, Mossman, Mary, Queen of Scots and Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, who defended Edinburgh Castle against the enemies of Mary.