St Cecilia's Hall Concert Room and Music Museum

St Cecilia's Hall, in Niddry Street, has been about for, well, ages, 1763 to be exact. Starting as a concert hall, it's been reinvented , amazingly, into a dance hall, a place for evening classes and workshops (including glass blowing), even consecrated for use by Freemasons and a lot more. But now it's part of the University of Edinburgh, with a collection of over 6000 historical musical instruments and a very ingenious and imaginative set of events - there's a museum lates in the run up to Hallowe'en, a family day which will include a spider hunt (only eight - but where will they be?) Then after a serious talk on St Cecilia's and the slave trade, there's a short series of queer themes in folk music. But one of the more exciting set of concerts coming up are the "quiet concerts", using instruments from the collection like the viol or the theorbo (no, I didn't know what it is either: it looks a bit like a giant lute). The idea is that there will be a low number of attendees, there won't be any electronic amplification or dazzling spotlights; applause will be muted; people will be able to wander around between the different pieces of music (it's all listed here: https://www.stcecilias.ed.ac.uk/whats-on/). Sitting in the reception, I watched the front door opening automatically, noted the flat accessible surfaces, the disabled toilet and the wide corridors and thought that this is a bit of all right. Seeing as there are heavy instruments which get moved about occasionally, there's also a very welcome lift. But nothing is perfect. The building, being so old, is listed (so only one lift is allowed, not two). More seriously, though, access outside the museum can only be described as challenging. This is no fault of the museum - it's a council matter. Niddry Street, which is narrow to start with, has a rough, cobbled sort of surface. However, the museum has thought very carefully about different types of accessibility (more details here: https://www.stcecilias.ed.ac.uk/visit/#access ) . The friendly, welcoming and efficient staff are aware of the difficulty of access from the street and will provide advice and suggestions if needed.

Not far from the Royal Mile, the Music Museum is a great find! St Celias Hall is part of Edinburgh University (though is a building in its own right, you don't go to the university campus). The collection has several galleries showing some of its historic musical instruments from 16th to 20th century. It's worth downloading the free app before you go.