Here's Where You Should Go If You Love Unicorns

A small fleet of unicorn plushies hangs from the ceiling above a selection of squidgy sofas and armchairs, coated with splashes of pastel pink, purple and blue.

Truthfully the relentless sparkling can be a little overwhelming, but the discerning guest is there for the food.

Rainbow muffins with marshmallow horns, multicoloured cake slices with marshmallow horns, and upturned ice cream cones that look like… well, you can guess.

The unicorn is a proud creature with a long and illustrious heritage, so it seems only fair to include this series of six tapestries at the Parisian Musee de Cluny to leave it a fitting artistic legacy.

Going by the modern title The Lady and the Unicorn, the works were woven with Flanders wool around 1500 AD, and are now heralded as some of the finest surviving examples of medieval art.

The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland (yep, really) and in most Scottish cities these one-horned wonders sit atop column, gatehouse, and battlement. Think the Doulton unicorn in Glasgow’s Springburn Park, the bronze unicorn outside the town hall in Inverness, or the royal unicorn sitting astride the great hall of Stirling Castle.

Edinburgh even boasts an fully-fledged unicorn trail, sauntering down the Royal Mile past the saltire waving unicorn atop the Mercat Cross and the unicorn fresco and Riddle’s Court, culminating with some 12th century figures in the National Museum of Scotland.

Of course, Scotland does not have a monopoly on such statues, and southern unicorn hunters need look no further than the gates of Buckingham Palace.

Unicorns are not known for their seafaring prowess, but the imaginatively named HMS Unicorn has been afloat for almost two centuries.

One of only two surviving Leda-class frigates – and one of 11 royal ships to have been so named – the HMS Unicorn is now a museum ship moored in Dundee, and its perfectly painted unicorn figurehead is an Instagram favourite.

Below deck is sadly a unicorn-free zone – naturally excluding the gift shop.

Fun fact: This particular unicorn is technically a goat – as you had doubtless noticed from the cloven hooves and beard – a definite spanner in the works for unicorn taxonomy.