Holyrood Park is one of the most popular places for children to try out new bikes, roller skates and other Christmas gifts.

To help make sure families can enjoy these pleasurable moments without having to worry about cars, there will be traffic restrictions on 25th and 26th  December.

These will be similar to the ones in place each Sunday, meaning Queens Drive and Duddingston Low Road will be closed off from 8am to 4pm.

Martin Gray, Royal Parks visitor services manager, said: “Christmas Day and Boxing Day tend to be very popular and we want people to be free to enjoy the park as much as possible.

“Children love to come here and try out their presents.

“And we all know that kids can be a wee bit wobbly on a new bike, so it’s great that there’s somewhere they can go where families don’t have to worry about the traffic.”

The High Road loop will remain open to cars, weather permitting.

Restrictions will also be in place on 1st January as events are taking place in the park as part of the city-wide celebrations. Details of times and areas affected are to be announced later.

• One of Edinburgh’s most famous and popular historic landmarks, Holyrood Park encompasses a five-mile radius of land and has probably been a royal park since the 12th century. The park is designated as both a Scheduled Ancient Monument and Site of Special Scientific Interest; it has a wealth of geological and archaeological treasures dating back thousands of years. These include Arthur's Seat, one of four hill forts dating from around 2000 years ago, a prehistoric farmstead of scooped circular huts, east of Dunsapie Crag, and the remains of Medieval and later rig-and-furrow cultivation. The Park is also an important habitat for a wide variety of wildlife, flora and fauna.