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Queen Elizabeth’s Commonwealth gifts to be displayed


A selection of gifts given to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth from Commonwealth nations are to go on display this weekend.

More than 70 colourful presents, which were brought back by the monarch from her trips during her 62-year reign, will go on show at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh to mark the build-up to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on July 23.

Items on display include, tapestries, portraits, porcelain plaques, and a pair of canoes.

Deborah Clarke, curator at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, said: "The Queen has visited almost every country in the Commonwealth and has received many unique objects from around the world.

"In the year that the Games come to Scotland, it seemed very fitting to mark Her Majesty’s role as Head of the Commonwealth and to display these gifts at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s official residence in Scotland."

The Queen started the Commonwealth baton relay last year in London and has sent it on to all of the 53 Commonwealth countries, before it’ll arrive in Glasgow in July.

The Commonwealth: Gifts to the Queen exhibition opens on March 21 and runs until November 2.