The Canongate Kirk was built for local people displaced from the nearby Holyrood Abbey, which James VII converted into a royal chapel in 1688. Behind its screen of cherry trees is a profusion of styles, its lovely curved Dutch gable a reminder of Scotland's trading links with the low countries. Above the small Doric portico are two arched windows, a coat of arms, an inscribed tablet flanked by cherubs' heads, and a swag of fruit. The antlers at the top are a reminder of the connection with Holyrood and the royal family who still worship here. The entrance way is now graced by a statue of poet Robert Fergusson striding down the Canongate.

In the kirkyard, with its immense display of monuments, urns, busts and mausoleums, lie David Rizzio ( Mary Queen of Scots murdered secretary); the moral philosopher and economist Adam Smith; Dugald Stewart, celebrated philosopher and teacher; Mrs MacLehose, better known as Burns's 'Clarinda'; Lord Provost George Drummond, 'father' of the New Town; Walter Scott's printers James and John Ballantyne, and in a plot to the west side, Robert Fergusson.

Fergusson was born in 1750 in Cap and Feather Close which was destroyed when the North Bridge was built. After briefly attending St Andrews University he returned to Edinburgh when his father died, and took up clerking. His early poems were in formal Augustan English. Then in lithe, muscular Scots his genius vibrantly and often irreverently caught the spirit of the Edinburgh of his day... its speech, sights, sounds and aromas.

'Auld Reikie! wale o' ilka town
That Scotland kens beneath the moon:
Whare couthy chields at e'ening meet
Their bizzin craigs and mou's to weet;
And blithely gar auld Care gae by
Wi' blinkin and wi' bleerin eye...
On stair, wi' tub or pat in hand,
The barefoot housemaids loe to stand,
That antrin fock may ken how snell
Auld Reikie will at mornin smell:
Then, with an inundation big as
The burn that 'neath the Nor' Brig is,
They kindly shower Edina's roses,
To quicken and regale our noses.'

...Edina's roses being the slops tipped out into the street morning and nightly. In 1774 Fergusson, sick and destitute, was committed to the local bedlam where his mother and sister found him, adorned by a crown of straw he had plaited with his own hands. He died, aged 24, and was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave; un-garlanded in the city of his birth. Until 13 years later a memorial stone was raised to him by none other than Robert Burns, who honoured him poignantly as ‘my elder brother in misfortune, by far my elder brother in the Muse'. 

It was Walter Scott who suggested that Fergusson's brushes with the Town Guard, or as they were known, the 'Black Banditti', merited his being crowned as their laureate. One of the Banditti was the Gaelic bard Duncan Ban MacIntyre. His colourful career included a conviction for the illegal distilling of whisky and running away at the Battle of Falkirk. But his nature poetry is supreme in Scottish literature. Here is how he saw the city's 'beautiful people' of his day:

'Many noble beaux are there / urbane and elegant, / having powder
on their wigs / right up to their crowns; / auburn, plaited tresses/
twisted into curls; / and like silk is the bushy top, / when it is
smoothed by comb. / Many patrician ladies / go up and down the
street, / all wearing gowns of silk / that brush against the ground;
/ stays are worn by the damsels, / compressing them above, / with
beauty spots on pretty faces / to increase their coquetry.'

This would also have delighted poet and playwright Allan Ramsay, who was determined earlier in the 18th century to reinstate the use of literary Scots. But he was conscious of its decline, allied to the loss of the Scottish Parliament to London  which had an impact at so many levels – not least the falling-off of trade among the capital's tavern owners:

'O Cannigate! Poor elritch hole!
What loss, what crosses does thou thole!
London and Death gars thee look drole,
And hing thy head;
Wow, but thou has e'en a cauld coal
To blaw indeed'

Nonetheless the 20th century poets, or makers, were still inspired by Fergusson's revival of Scots, not least Robert Garioch who touchingly notes the 'wee roseirs' still flowering on Fergusson's grave. Today there's dispute about whether the striding Fergusson is headed for the varied textures and perspectives of the new Parliament building at Holyrood; some nearby tavern; or the airy sanctuary, diagonally opposite in Crichton's Close, of the Scottish Poetry Library. This magnificent building by Malcolm Fraser is, to quote the words of one its founding patrons, Iain Crichton Smith 'a fresh hypothesis'. The library’s closeness to the new Scottish Parliament makes the country’s legislators – acknowledged and unacknowledged – symbolic neighbours. One gets the sense Fergusson would have approved.

This material was commissioned and produced by Edinburgh World Heritage and Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust, with support from the Scottish Arts Council.  The scripts were written by Edinburgh poet and author, Stewart Conn, and performed by Shonagh Price and Donald Smith, with additional editorial material by Donald Smith.

All material is copyright Edinburgh World Heritage and Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust unless otherwise stated.