Edinburgh's NewTown: history and hostelries

Aileen Torrance takes us on a historic walk around Edinburgh's New Town.

Edinburgh's elegant New Town was custom designed and built in the late 18th century. With a host of distinguished former residents, a walk through this beautiful district gives a real sense of Edinburgh's history and Scotland's rich cultural and literary heritage. As an added bonus, the New Town boasts an excellent and diverse selection of atmospheric traditional pubs in which to shelter from the vagaries of the weather, providing an opportunity to nourish the body as well as the mind.

The ‘old' town of Edinburgh in the 1750s was a clutter of unsanitary tenements accessed through narrow closes and treacherous stairwells. The collapse of a sixstorey tenement, killing one of the occupants, finally forced the city council to take action.

The North Loch (now Princes Street Gardens) was drained. Next came the building of North Bridge, a massive structure almost 70 feet high, which opened up access to the land north of the existing city boundaries. Work on the ‘new' town of Edinburgh could begin.

In 1766, the young architect James Craig won the competition launched by Lord Provost George Drummond for the new town's design. It was a simple plan, with George Street forming the backbone, Queen Street and Princes Street (called St Giles Street in the original plan) running parallel on either side. Two leafy squares named for the patron saints of Scotland and England, Andrew and George, symbolised the union of the two parliaments which had taken place in 1707.

Charlotte Square (...

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• By : Aileen Torrance
• In : Travel
• Issue : 43
• Page : 68
• Words : 1,734