A wee bit about us
The Historic Edinburgh Tours story
Historic Edinburgh Tours - Lovers of Local History
Historic Edinburgh Tours was formed in 2013 to provide high-quality walking tours around the Old Town of Edinburgh. We research, write, plan and resource our tours ourselves and pride ourselves on a high degree of professionalism. Taking people around our home city is a great honour for us! It fills us with pride when people come from around the world to see Edinburgh!
Historic Edinburgh Tours is aware of just how important your vacation time is for you! We don’t want to disappoint you in any which way. Instead, we want to add value to your holiday. It’s what we aim and aspire to do. We also absolutely love taking locals around their home city and feel very proud when we reveal new things to people who have spent their lives in Edinburgh.
We’ve been a family-run company since 2015. Below you will find out a little bit about why we love doing what we do and why we think you’ll enjoy a guided tour of Edinburgh with us.
Why choose Historic Edinburgh Tours?
Consistently excellent
Robert is our Edinburgh tour guide and is our only tour guide. Each of our awards has been won with him at the helm. You're guaranteed consistency of excellence. We would only use an additional tour guide if a private booking were large enough to warrant this. We would discuss this with you before your tour
Award-winning Edinburgh tours
Historic Edinburgh Tours have been awarded Tripadvisor Certificates of Excellence in 2017 and 2018. We won a Tripadvisor Traveller's Choice award in 2020. In 2020, we were nominated for the 'Best Entertainment' category of the Edinburgh Business Awards.
A teacher and a guide
Robert is a teacher in a local primary school and has taught for over twenty years. He's not sure he can believe that he's old enough for that! He studied primary school education in the historic Moray House building which sits in Edinburgh's Canongate, a street which forms part of the Royal Mile.
Explore Edinburgh With Our Local Guide
Your guide has lived in Edinburgh all his life. Born within view of the Old Town, he will give you an authentic Scottish perspective on his nation’s past. He has spent his entire life in the historic city of Edinburgh. He even has direct links to one of the stories he tells in Greyfriars Kirkyard!
We Do 'Our Bit' For The Local Community
Although we're a small company, we do want to 'do our bit'. We've frequently run special charity tours. All of the monies taken on these tours have been donated to the local Streetwork charity. This fantastic charity helps local homeless and disadvantaged people. We also frequently share posts from Streetwork on our social media pages.
A local Edinburgh tour company
Robert has written and resourced each one of our tours. His particular favourite is the Slum life in Victorian Edinburgh tour because it reveals a very different part of Edinburgh's history. He does have a great fondness for Greyfriars Kirkyard as his work on the virtual tour was what allowed him to lead our first-ever tours. Robert has also provided resources for TV programmes, books and has advised on educational schemes of work. He has appeared on Dutch TV and also gave a talk on local history at the Museum of Edinburgh in 2015.