The Sheep Heid Inn
Scotland's oldest surviving skittle alley is out the back of this Duddingston pub.1
Why go
The Skinny's listing puts the alley plainly: There's even a skittle alley out back - Scotland's oldest surviving one at that.
1 The same page prints the pub's long-standing claim to have been serving since 1360 and calls it a favourite of poets and monarchs, which is the story Duddingston tells about itself rather than a date anyone has documented here. Readers voted the Sunday lunch one of the Best Sunday Lunch spots in The Skinny's 2018 Food & Drink Survey, and the same page warns that getting a table on a Sunday can be somewhat of a challenge
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Good to know
- Address: 43-45 The Causeway, Duddingston EH15 3QA. The FSA record files it at 43.12
- Booking: book for Sunday lunch.1
- Price: nothing published.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 24 April 2019, FHRSID 663711. Seven years and three months old, so it is a pass and it is not a recent one.2
- Getting there: Duddingston village sits under the east side of Arthur's Seat, so the pub is the natural end of a walk over the hill from Holyrood rather than a bus trip.
Verdict
could-visit — The pub at the foot of Arthur's Seat in Duddingston, which has been claiming a licence since 1360 and has the last traditional skittle alley in Scotland out the back. What it is good for is the walk: you come off the hill into a village that does not feel like it is inside a city and you eat a Sunday lunch that Skinny readers voted for. It stays at could-visit because no critic has written a verdict on the food in anything read here, and because the hygiene record is seven years old. Book if it is a Sunday.