Duddingston village is exactly half way between the royal residences of Craigmillar Castle and Holyrood Palace, and James, like his mother Mary, Queen of Scots, is said to have stopped here many times and even played skittles in the courtyard behind the pub. As a mark of gratitude he presented the landlord with this highly unusual gift which remained on site for 300 years before being sold at auction to the Earl of Rosebery, whose descendants possess it still at their country seat of Dalmeny House.[2] The pub does, however, possess a 19th-century copy behind its bar. The greater likelihood therefore is that the name was adopted for the pub to mark it apart from the many other taverns known to have existed in the locality.[3]
History[edit]
In the intervening centuries The Sheep Heid Inn witnessed many remarkable national events. The various factions of the Covenantingyears 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.
The Sheep Heid Inn also possesses an old fashioned bowling alley, built around 1870, 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]
THE SHEEP HEID INN
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