Mary King's Close packs in visitors

A NEW Edinburgh tourist attraction has seen 70,000 visitors in its first six months.

The Real Mary King’s Close, which opened at Easter on the Royal Mile, has already exceeded its projected visitor numbers for the year. Guided tours of the historic underground site have been running at full capacity throughout the summer.

Dominic Tweddle, chief executive of the Continuum Group, which runs the attraction, said: "We’re delighted with performances - we’ve exceeded our own high expectations.

"The results from our visitor survey for August show that the attraction is providing a very high level of satisfaction for visitors."

The Continuum Group, which owns and operates other historic attractions around the UK, won the tender to design, develop, operate and manage Mary King’s Close and the series of other underground closes towards the end of 2001.