Sheep Heid Inn
The Sheep Heid Inn is a public house in Duddingston, Edinburgh, Scotland. There has reputedly been an inn on this site since 1360, although the core of the current building appears to date from the 18th century with later additions and alterations. If the 1360 foundation date was proved correct it would make The Sheep Heid Inn perhaps the oldest surviving licensed premises in Edinburgh, if not Scotland.
Skittle alleyIn the intervening centuries The Sheep Heid Inn witnessed many remarkable national events. The various factions of the Covenanting years were wont to stop off as they passed to and fro, as did the Jacobite Army a century later. On this latter occasion the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie was encamped at Duddingston for a month prior to the battle of Prestonpans.[1][2]
The Sheep Heid Inn also possesses an old fashioned bowling alley, built around 1880,[3] which is reputedly the last such alley in Scotland. The Royal Company of Archers, the City Sheriffs, and the local regiments based at the nearby Piershill Barracks and Duddingston training camps, were all once regulars. The last of the old clubs to survive are the Trotters Club, founded in 1882 and who still meet in the alley once a month.[4]
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