Doors Open 2025: 29 Edinburgh buildings inviting you in for a look round.
More than 100 Edinburgh buildings are welcoming the public to take a look around as part of Scotland’s annual Doors Open Days. It’s an opportunity to glimpse behind the scenes in buildings you may pass every day but have never entered.
Doors Open Day, which has been operating for 35 years, takes place on different weekends across the country. Buildings throughout Midlothian will open their doors this weekend, September 13 and 14. West Lothian will be held the next weekend, September 20-21.3
And Edinburgh’s turn comes at the end of the month, Saturday and Sunday 27 and 28 September. More than 100 sites in the Capital have signed up to take part.
Here’s a first instalment of 29 places you can visit in Edinburgh that weekend – look out for more to come.
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1. Abbey Strand Centre
The Abbey Strand structures, located immediately beyond the gates of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, have witnessed more than five centuries of Scottish history.
They were used as a weapons store during James V’s reign, as courtiers’ apartments for Mary, Queen of Scots’ court, and as a refuge for indebted individuals.
Today, the Abbey Strand Centre is a learning centre, with a diverse programme of school visits, seminars, and lectures inspired by the Palace’s rich history and the surrounding area.
Address: 10 Abbey Strand, EH8 8DU. Open: Sunday, September 28, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The physic garden offers guided tours at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p. The Scottish Civic Trust
2. Abden House – Confucius Institute, Edinburgh University
Abden House was constructed in 1855 for the publisher Thomas Nelson. It is now owned by Edinburgh University and serves as the headquarters for the Edinburgh Confucius Institute.
Abden, built in the Jacobean revivalist style of the nineteenth century, has three floors and faces a carriage circle with gates at the end of Marchhall Crescent.
Language and culture activities will be available, enabling individuals of all ages to learn more about the Institute, meet its teachers, and learn some Chinese.
Address: 1 Marshall Crescent, EH16 5HP. Open: Sunday, September 28, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Maverick Photography Agency
3. Adam Smith’s Panmure House
Panmure House, Lochend Close, is the last extant residence of Adam Smith, the philosopher and ‘father of modern economics.’
It was initially erected in 1691, and Smith lived there from 1778 to 1790, when he finished the final editions of his masterworks, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. Edinburgh Business School and Heriot-Watt University began rescuing this ancient property from degradation in 2008, and it was fully opened in 2018.
Today, it is a centre of excellence for the study of current economics, a location to reflect on Adam Smith’s legacy, and a forum for social and economic discourse. Address: 4 Lochend Close, EH8 8BL. Open Saturday and Sunday, September 27 and 28, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Scottish Civic Trust
4. Advocates Library
The Advocates Library, established in 1689, is widely regarded as Scotland’s greatest working legal library and one of the best law libraries in the British Isles.
It is located in Parliament House, opposite to the Court of Session, near St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile, and is rarely open to the public, thus Doors Open offers a unique opportunity to visit.
Address: Parliament House, Parliament Square, Edinburgh EH1 1RF. Open: Saturday, September 27, 10 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. Scottish Civic Trust.
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