The Balmoral Hotel

Look up at the tower and compare its clock with your phone. Chances are it's three minutes fast. That's no mistake: it has been kept that way for many decades so that travellers rushing for Waverley station, just below, don't miss their trains.

There's only one day a year when the clock shows the right time: 31 December, so that Hogmanay, Scotland's New Year's Eve, is celebrated on the dot.

1A railway hotel

The building opened in 1902 as the North British Station Hotel, owned by the North British Railway company. It was designed by William Hamilton Beattie, who died before it was finished. For nearly a century it was simply 'the North British'. After a major refurbishment it reopened in 1991 as the Balmoral.

2Room 552

Here is one of the Harry Potter links that really is confirmed. J. K. Rowling shut herself away in room 552 to finish 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', and completed it on 11 January 2007. She recorded the fact herself, in marker pen, on a marble bust of Hermes in the room, which is now kept in a glass case. The room is now the J. K. Rowling Suite.

3What to look out for

• The tower clock and its three minutes' head start.
• The tower, around 58 metres high, one of the landmarks of the Princes Street skyline.
• The Wellington statue, by John Steell, in front of Robert Adam's Register House.