Ten things you didn't know about... Midlothian

The Heart of Midlothian Football Club (Hearts, whose supporters are known as "jam tarts" or "jambos") took its name from the Heart of Midlothian Dancing Club. In 1874 its members decided they wanted to play football as well, and the rest is history.

Midlothian is home to Rosslyn Chapel, which appeared in the Dan Brown novel, The Da Vinci Code. Founded in 1446, and much used by the Knights Templar, the building is still a place of worship for local people.

Midlothian, south of Edinburgh, was known as the County Of Edinburgh until 1921, and also as Edinboroughshire. In 1974 it was separated from Edinburgh, which became a distinct unitary authority itself. Edinburgh is often called the Athens of the North thanks to the neo-classical architecture of the buildings on the Acropolis-like Calton Hill.

The Heart of Midlothian is a heart-shaped mosaic in the cobbled pavement of Edinburgh's Royal Mile close to St Giles' Cathedral. It marks the centre of Edinburgh's Old Town, and the spot since the Middle Ages where successive meetings of Parliament, the town council, privy council and town hall were held, at the Tolbooth building, before it became a prison in 1640. It was demolished in 1817.

Sir Walter Scott's 1818 novel The Heart Of Midlothian, the seventh of his beloved Waverley novels, features the dreaded Tolbooth prison. The author of Ivanhoe cemented his place in Edinburgh's history in 1854 when the city's central railway station was named Waverley.

In 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots stayed at Borthwick Castle, Midlothian, while on the run. She escaped there disguised as a pageboy, to meet her third husband, James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, who had designs on the Scottish throne. Her ghost is now said to appear there, still disguised.

The history of shale and coal mining in Midlothian, covering Penicuik, Roslin and Loanhead, was tragically overshadowed by the Mauricewood Pit disaster of 5 September 1889 that claimed 63 workers' lives.

Midlothian's most famous MP, William Gladstone, served as leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister in four governments between 1868 to 1894. He represented Edinburghshire from 1880 to 1895. Since 1922, what is now Midlothian has been represented by a near-unbroken string of Labour MPs.