5 Pounds Sterling 1953, Kingdom of Great Britain
| in Banknotes Book | Number: SC512f |
| Years of issue: | 05.01.1953 |
| Edition: | -- |
| Signatures: | Cashier: Mr. A.S.O Dandie, General Manager: Mr. J. A. Brown |
| Serie: | Scotland |
| Specimen of: | 03.06.1947 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 210 x 126 |
| Printer: | Waterlow and Sons Limited, London |
* All pictures marked 
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Description
Watermark:
Avers:
Coat of arms of The National Bank of Scotland is centered.
In the center of the emblem apostle Saint Andrew dressed in purple monastic cloak. In front of him a silver cross martyr. He stands on the ground, to the right are the sheaf of hay in red color, to the left the ship in full sail (from the coat of Ship Bank).
Bottom shield fit, proportionally, two branches of thistle, crossing below. Over embroidered royal coronet, Eskroll - feathers, a symbol of royal power (often used in heraldry). Above them, the motto - "In patriam fidelis" (Faithful family home). The supporters are 2 lions standing on its legs in red color.
Coat of arms included in the Register of León in 1826.
On left side is Schomberg Henry Kerr, Marquess of Lothian. It is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1701 for Robert Kerr, 4th Earl of Lothian.
Schomberg Henry Kerr, 9th Marquess of Lothian KT, PC (2 December 1833 - 17 January 1900), styled Lord Schomberg Kerr until 1870, was a British diplomat and Conservative politician. He served as Secretary for Scotland under Lord Salisbury between 1887 and 1892.
Lothian was the second son of John Kerr, 7th Marquess of Lothian, and Lady Cecil, daughter of Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot. His younger brothers Major-General Lord Ralph Kerr (1837-1916) and Admiral of the Fleet Lord Walter Kerr (1839-1927) both had distinguished military careers. He was educated at Trinity College Glenalmond, now Glenalmond College Perth, and was one of the first of 14 boys to join the newly started school in 1847, arriving one day early by mistake. He later went to New College, Oxford.
Lothian entered the Diplomatic Service and was Attaché at Lisbon and Tehran in 1854, Baghdad in 1855 and Athens from 1857, then second secretary at Frankfurt from 1862, Madrid from 1865, and Vienna from 1865. In 1870 he succeeded to the marquess ate on the early death of his childless elder brother, and took his place in the House of Lords.
In 1886 he was sworn of the Privy Council, and the following year he succeeded Arthur Balfour as Secretary for Scotland and Vice-President of the Scottish Education Department in Lord Salisbury's Conservative administration. However, in contrast to Balfour, he was not a member of the cabinet. He remained as head of the Scotland Office until the government fell in 1892.
Apart from his political career Lord Lothian was Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland from 1874, a post he held until his death 26 years later, and was also Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland while Secretary of State. In 1878 he was created a Knight of the Thistle, and in 1882 he received an honorary degree (LL.D.) from the University of Edinburgh. The students of the same university elected him Rector of the University of Edinburgh between 1887 and 1890. He was a Trustee of the Board of Manufactures in Scotland until his death.
He was Captain-General of the Royal Company of Archers, president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1876-1890) and Royal Scottish Geographical Society (1894-1898), and a Knight of Grace of the Venerable Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. From 1878 to 1889 he was colonel commanding the 3rd Battalion Royal Scots, and he later became Honorary Colonel of that battalion. 
Under it is the picture of navigation on the River Clyde.
Navigation along the River Clyde was improved over many years by increasing the water depth and the channel width to enable shipping to gain access to Glasgow from the Firth of Clyde. Glasgow became the foremost ship building port and the consequent prosperity in the city over the period is evident from the increase in population, from about 12,000 people at the end of the XVII century to some 566,000 in 1871. The city's population is today around 593,000 people.
On right side (top image) is Edinburgh Castle.
Edinburgh Castle is a historic fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland from its position on the Castle Rock. Archaeologists have established human occupation of the rock since at least the Iron Age (II century AD), although the nature of the early settlement is unclear. There has been a royal castle on the rock since at least the reign of David I in the XII century, and the site continued to be a royal residence until the Union of the Crowns in 1603. From the XV century the castle's residential role declined, and by the XVII century it was principally used as military barracks with a large garrison. Its importance as a part of Scotland's national heritage was recognized increasingly from the early XIX century onwards, and various restoration programs have been carried out over the past century and a half. As one of the most important strongholds in the Kingdom of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle was involved in many historical conflicts from the Wars of Scottish Independence in the XIV century to the Jacobite Rising of 1745. It has been besieged, both successfully and unsuccessfully, on several occasions.
Few of the present buildings pre-date the Lang Siege of the XVI century, when the medieval defenses were largely destroyed by artillery bombardment. The most notable exceptions are St Margaret's Chapel from the early XII century, which is regarded as the oldest building in Edinburgh, the Royal Palace and the early-XVI-century Great Hall, although the interiors have been much altered from the mid-Victorian period onwards. The castle also houses the Scottish regalia, known as the Honours of Scotland and is the site of the Scottish National War Memorial and the National War Museum of Scotland. The British Army is still responsible for some parts of the castle, although its presence is now largely ceremonial and administrative.
Under it is a Palace of Holyrood House.
It is the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. Located at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, at the opposite end to Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace has served as the principal residence of the Kings and Queens of Scots since the XVI century, and is a setting for state occasions and official entertaining.
Holyrood Abbey was founded by David I, King of Scots, in 1128, and the abbey's position close to Edinburgh Castle meant that it was often visited by Scotland's monarchs, who were lodged in the guest house situated to the west of the abbey cloister. James IV constructed a new palace adjacent to the abbey in the early XVI century, and James V made additions to the palace, including the present north-west tower. Holyrood Palace was re-constructed in its present form between 1671 and 1679 to the Baroque design of the architect Sir William Bruce, forming four wings around a central courtyard, with a west front linking the XVI-century north-west tower with a matching south-west tower. The Queen's Gallery was built adjacent to the palace and opened to the public in 2002 to exhibit works of art from the Royal Collection.
HM The Queen Elizabeth spends one week in residence at Holyrood Palace at the beginning of each summer, where she carries out a range of official engagements and ceremonies. The XVI century Historic Apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots and the State Apartments, used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public throughout the year, except when members of the Royal Family are in residence.
Denominations in numerals are in top corners, in words centered and on bottom.
Revers:
The panel with a pattern. The Pattern made under precisely undershirts of classic vintage postcards.
Inside is the view of the of Edinburgh from Calton Hill (the hill in the center of Edinburgh, east of Princes Street).
On Princess street is Scotts monument visible.
The Scott Monument is a Victorian Gothic monument to Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. It is the largest monument to a writer in the world. It stands in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, opposite the Jenners department store on Princes Street and near to Edinburgh Waverley Railway Station, which is named after Scott's Waverley novels.
The tower is 200 feet 6 inches (61.11 m.) high, and has a series of viewing platforms reached by a series of narrow spiral staircases giving panoramic views of central Edinburgh and its surroundings. The highest platform is reached by a total of 288 steps. It is built from Binny sandstone quarried near Ecclesmachan in West Lothian.
In terms of its location, it is placed on axis with South St David Street, the main street leading off St Andrew Square to Princes Street, and is a focal point within that vista, its scale being large enough to totally screen the Old Town behind. As seen from the south side, Princes Street Gardens, its location appears more random, but it totally dominates the Eastern section of the gardens, through a combination of its scale and elevated position relative to the sunken gardens.
Following Scott's death in 1832, a competition was held to design a monument to him. An unlikely entrant went under the pseudonym "John Morvo", the name of the medieval architect of Melrose Abbey. Morvo was in fact George Meikle Kemp, forty-five-year-old joiner, draftsman, and self-taught architect. Kemp had feared his lack of architectural qualifications and reputation would disqualify him, but his design (similar to an unsuccessful one he had earlier submitted for Glasgow Cathedral) was popular with the competition's judges, and in 1838 Kemp was awarded the contract to construct the monument.
John Steell was commissioned to design a monumental statue of Scott to rest in the space between the tower's four columns. Steell's statue, made from white Carrara marble, shows Scott seated, resting from writing one of his works with a quill pen and his dog Maida by his side. The monument carries 64 figures (carried out in three phases) of characters from Scott's novels by a variety of Scots sculptors including, Alexander Handyside Ritchie, John Rhind, William Birnie Rhind, William Brodie, William Grant Stevenson, David Watson Stevenson, John Hutchison, George Anderson Lawson, Thomas Stuart Burnett, William Shirreffs, Andrew Currie, George Clark Stanton, Peter Slater, and two female representatives, Amelia Robertson Hill (who also made the statue of David Livingstone immediately east of the monument), who contributed three figures to the monument, and the otherwise unknown Katherine Anne Fraser Tytler.
The foundation stone was laid on 15 August 1840. Following permission by an Act of Parliament (the Monument to Sir Walter Scott Act 1841 (4 & 5 Vict.) C A P. XV.), construction began in 1841 and ran for nearly four years. The tower was completed in the autumn of 1844, with Kemp's son placing the finial in August of the year. The total cost was just over £16,154. When the monument was inaugurated on 15 August 1846, George Meikle Kemp himself was absent, having fallen into the Union Canal while walking home from the site on the foggy evening of 6 March 1844 and drowned.
In total (excluding Scott and his dog), there are 68 figurative statues on the monument of which 64 are visible from the ground. Four figures are placed above the final viewing gallery and are only visible by telephoto or (at a very distorted angle) from the viewing gallery itself. In addition, eight kneeling Druid figures support the final viewing gallery. There are 32 unfilled niches at higher level.
Sixteen heads of Scottish poets and writers appear on the lower faces, at the top of the lower pilasters. The heads (anti-clockwise from the NW) represent: James Hogg; Robert Burns; Robert Fergusson; Allan Ramsay; George Buchanan; Sir David Lindsay; Robert Tannahill; Lord Byron; Tobias Smollett; James Beattie; James Thomson; John Home; Mary, Queen of Scots; King James I of Scotland; King James V of Scotland; and William Drummond of Hawthornden.
In total, 93 persons are depicted, plus two dogs and a pig.
The name Princes Street is synonymous with Edinburgh, but its architecture is often overlooked by city residents. In fact most of its buildings are now listed, and in amongst the modern stores are some real treasures.
Princes Street is part of the New Town plan designed by James Craig in 1767, and took its name from the sons of King George III. In stark contrast to today, it started out as a residential street with the first inhabitants moving in during the 1770s.
Many of the original houses still exist, although they are now often heavily disguised. Look out for number 95 Princes Street, now Hector Russell’s kilt shop, the last surviving completely intact Georgian town house. Here you can still see the basic design of a building with three storeys and sunken basement, as laid down in the regulations in 1781.
The first residents of Princes Street must have been a fairly adventurous bunch, as it was not a particularly desirable place to live. The Nor’ Loch had only just been drained and resembled a muddy swamp, the ‘earthern mound’ was just being formed from all the excavations, and the street had a growing reputation for being rather windy. Fairly quickly however the character of the street started to change, and by Victorian times it was known for its shops and hotels, which brought new styles of architecture.
The 1949 the ‘Abercrombie Plan’ proposed radical changes to Princes Street, with extensive redevelopment, and only three historic buildings considered worthy of retention. In 1967 a report recommended building first floor balconies to form a continuous walkway across the front of the entire street. The plan never took off, but you can see a small complete section at the former British Home Stores. Built in 1967 it shows just how far architecture had moved on since the Edwardian grandeur of Jenners, and today it is a listed building in its own right. (ewh.org.uk)
Comments:
Although, Scotland is not an independent state, and is part of the UK. Three Scottish banks have the right to issue their own banknotes. Officially, these notes are not called "Scottish pounds" and their denomination designated in pound sterling. In the strict sense of the term "Legal Tender" banknotes of Scottish banks are not even legal tender in Scotland, but can be taken throughout the United Kingdom.
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