Surgeon's Hall Museum
Price guide: Budget
Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9DW
Loading map...
| Save money and beat the queues by booking attractions, tours and things... |
#6 of 22
expert-rated things to do in Edinburgh- Recommended for:
- Backpackers / Students, Couples, Culture vultures, Families with teenagers, Seasoned travellers, Education, History, Nature / wildlife
Expert review of Surgeon's Hall Museum
Dr Frankenstein probably learned his craft here.
This museum is the result of 500 years of The Royal College of Surgeons. You have to be quite robust and interested in the mystery of the human form to wander through the Pathology Museum; this is no Disneyland exhibition. What will make you smile is the History of Dentistry, even if it is just to check your teeth in the mirror after seeing all the exhibits.
I have never seen anything like this anywhere else in the world. This is 100 per cent the real deal and probably the reason that surgeons still travel the globe to be educated here.
Burke and Hare are the talk of the town at the moment with the new Hollywood film about to premier in the UK. Burke's actual death mask, a plaster cast of his face made after his hanging, is on display. Gulp.
Interestingly there is an exhibit on at the moment - October 2010 - charting the close working relationship of Arthur Conan Doyle and a professor from the Royal College and suggestions that the character Sherlock Holmes used knowledge gleaned during visits here.
Price advice:
Only £5 per head - though in this context it might be more appropriate to say only £5 per ticket; £3 concession.
Free tours with an admission ticket every afternoon at 2pm. To gain access to some of the exhibits you must be with a guide.
Expert tips:
To gain access to the upper gallery of the pathology museum you must be part of a tour group.
Attached to one of the best budget hotels in Edinburgh: Ten Hill Place Hotel (see my hotels page).
More information on Surgeon's Hall Museum:
- Price guide:
- Type:
- Historic site, Museum, Natural wonder
- Address:
- Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9DW
- Telephone:
- 0131 527 1649
- Website:
- http://www.museum.rcsed.ac.uk
- Months open:
- All year round
- Opening times:
- Mon -Fri noon-4pm; closed Christmas Day until 4th January inclusive
- Indoor/outdoor?:
- Indoor
Community comments (1)
The Surgeon's Hall is a fascinating place to visit for anyone with an interest in the history of Medicine.
The Conan Doyle exhibition is well worth seeing by any Sherlockian, as it charts the relationship between the author and Dr Joseph Bell who was Doyle's medical school tutor at Edinburgh. Bell's deductive powers when making a diagnosis are believed to have inspired those of the great detective