The Balmoral Clock: Three Minutes Fast
Why is it significant?
Crane your neck at the clock tower of The Balmoral, rising above the east end of Princes Street with its big round faces. Now check the time on your phone. If the tower is about three minutes ahead of you, nothing is broken. It has been doing that on purpose for more than a century.
Key Facts
| Place | The Balmoral Clock: Three Minutes Fast |
|---|---|
| Address | 1 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH2 2EQ, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.95310, -3.18930 |
| Part of Walk | Painted, Carved and Planted: Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens and the Mound |
| Generated | Generated |
Crane your neck at the clock tower of The Balmoral, rising above the east end of Princes Street with its big round faces. Now check the time on your phone. If the tower is about three minutes ahead of you, nothing is broken. It has been doing that on purpose for more than a century.
The hotel opened in 1902 as the North British Station Hotel, built by the North British Railway right on top of Waverley Station below. Its clock was set fast so that travellers rushing down to the platforms would not miss their trains. The one night of the year when it tells the exact time is Hogmanay, so that the whole city can count down to midnight properly.
The architect was William Hamilton Beattie, and he also designed the building you can see further along Princes Street, at the corner of St David Street: the former Jenners department store, where carved stone women hold up the upper floors like caryatids on a Greek temple. Jenners was founded in 1838 and became the grandest shop in Scotland, with royal warrants on its walls. It closed after more than 180 years of trading, and the building is being given a new life.
The hotel took the name The Balmoral in 1991, after the royal estate in Aberdeenshire. In January 2007 J.K. Rowling finished writing the last Harry Potter book in one of its rooms, number 552, and wrote a note to mark the moment on a marble bust in the room. Fans have been asking about that room ever since.
Beneath your feet, trains rumble in and out of a deep valley. Two and a half centuries ago that valley held a foul, stagnant loch. Walk west along Princes Street to Waverley Bridge, turn onto it, and stop at the parapet to look down into the station.