All About Scotland

As the population grew, they became warrens in which all classes intermingled; those of a higher social station on the upper floors, furthest from the din and squalor at street level.  Around 1730 Edmund Burt wrote, of an Edinburgh eating-house, 'The cook was too filthy an object to be described; only another English gentleman whispered to me and said, he believed, if the fellow was to be thrown against a wall, he would stick to it.'

In her Journal of 1803, Dorothy Wordsworth describes: 'The Old Town with its irregular houses, stage above stage. In the obscurity of a rainy day, it hardly resembles the work of man, it is more like a piling of rocks'. The eye however is drawn up to St Giles Cathedral where the luckenbooths - stalls or shops once plastered like nests around the medieval walls. Here Allan Ramsay set up one of the first lending libraries in Britain, Robert Burns' publisher William Creech had his place of business, and William Smellie pioneered the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The cathedral itself has a host of literary memorials, while beside it at the Mercat Cross you could 'take 50 men of genius and learning by the hand'.

With the exodus to the New Town in the early 19th century, the Old Town kept falling into ever greater disrepair. The 1860 improvement acts cleared away the worst, along with some faded medieval treasures. But thanks to early conservation pioneers like Sir Patrick Geddes, many historic buildings were saved rather than demolished; their street-pattern preserved.

At the top of the Lawnmarket , at one time crowded with the stalls and booths of linen-sellers, a narrow passage leads to James Court. Here the philosopher David Hume lived, and in 1773 James Boswell entertained Dr Johnson prior to their tour of the Hebrides. 'I smell you in the dark', the doctor growled, as he walked up the High Street on his arrival... a further pointer to the Old Town's fearsome sanitary conditions.

Gladstone's Land, a fine example of an Old Town house, was bought in 1617 by Thomas Gledstanes, a prosperous merchant, who extended the original property by adding a room on the front of each floor. Their timber frames were a fire hazard, and in due course the council ruled that such frontages had to be of stone. Thus the galleries became arcades, behind which booths or stalls were set. Today the narrow building remains typical of Scottish town architecture of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But although these arcades were formerly a common feature of High Street properties, this is now the only original survivor in Edinburgh. 

Just below Gladstone's Land, Robert Burns lodged in Baxter's Close, on his first visit to Edinburgh in November 1786, hot on the heels of glowing reviews for the Kilmarnock edition of his poems. The room he rented for 18 pence a week had 'a deal table, a sanded floor and a chaff bed'. It was also situated over a brothel, which kept the lodgers awake at night.

Beside Gladstone's Land, which is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland, Lady Stair's Close was once the main foot-way from the Old Town to the New. It also leads to Lady Stair's House, built in 1622 by another wealthy merchant, and named after Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Stair, a leader of Edinburgh fashion. Currently the Writers' Museum, the house is dedicated to the work and lives of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. On display are personal items such as Burns' writing-desk, and a rocking-horse made for Scott as a child, with one footrest higher than the other to make allowance for his disabled right leg. The Writers Museum also houses the Scottish branch of International PEN, the organisation that campaigns for imprisoned writers and freedom of expression.

The surrounding courtyard has been named Makars' Court. Makar, meaning maker or craftsman, is the old Scottish word for poet. Inscribed in the paving-stones are quotations ranging from the 14th century John Barbour - 'A! Fredome is a noble thing' to William Dunbar who served at the Court of James IV and is regarded as Edinburgh's first poet.  Also commemorated are John Buchan and Neil Gunn, Margaret Oliphant - the first Scottish woman to earn a living by the pen, Violet Jacob and Naomi Mitchison, the Orcadian George Mackay Brown, and the Gaelic bards Sorley MacLean and Iain Crichton Smith. The Old Town stones have transformed into a tapestry of literary talent.

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.